


Everything Stays

by Callmetiny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Natasha's death is actually acknowledged, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker eventually gets a hug, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Wanda Maximoff is a Good Bro, because everyone is a good bro in the end, or is she
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2020-07-12 10:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmetiny/pseuds/Callmetiny
Summary: When Happy comes to the compound with a gang of children in tow, Wanda is right to be confused. She doesn’t know who Peter Parker is, why he's there, or what happened, let alone what she’s supposed to do with him—and neither does the rest of the team.Yet, when Happy explains what happened, she wants nothing more than to help.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was all the result of me being sad about the FFH mid-credit scene and attempting to fix it, you know, like ya do. This chap's more like a set-up for everything, sorry if it's a little ramble-y. Hope you guys enjoy! :)

At sunset, the compound was swathed in red, pink, and orange.

The colors bounced off the windows and shone off the metal, blinding to anybody standing outside but comforting to the people inside. All those blobs of warmth spilled out across the floor, and, though the thermostat on the wall was there and the little number on it blinked out 77, the compound stayed as warm as the sunset. It wasn’t that they didn’t have air conditioning—even in upstate New York, Stark had insisted on getting it—it was just that it was too nice outside for the temperature to matter. The air conditioning had been turned off.

Upstate in the summer was just the right amount of cool after sunset, situated nicely between cool enough for a jacket and warm enough to feel the sweat stick to your skin. Turning on the A/C would be nothing but a waste of energy. Once the sun came down and darkness enveloped the compound, everything would settle down, the temperature would dip, and people would wonder why they’d thought the A/C was a good idea in the first place. Warm sunset crept in through the windows, all those reds, pinks, and oranges soak into the walls, the whole compound glowing like the warm embers of a fire. Windows were opened, where they were allowed to be. 77 ticked up to 78.

A plane landed on the runway.

In the common room, Wanda played a game of blackjack.

Clint was across from her, Sam on her left, and Banner on her right. Clint and Sam seemed to be having the time of their lives, slamming down the occasional good card and laughing at the look of defeat on the other’s face as they did it. Banner looked, somehow, even more disinterested than when they’d started. Every now and then, his face would dip in confusion, and he’d lean over to ask someone whether his cards were good or not. If he was lucky, he would turn to her, and she would smile or frown based on whatever it was, inciting no reaction from anyone who wasn’t paying just the right amount of attention. If he was unlucky, he’d turn to Clint, and he’d bark out how bad Banner’s cards were to the whole table, whether they really were bad or not.

Bucky was there too, leaned against the wall. On his face was a carefully neutral expression—a poker face meant for a game of blackjack. Occasionally, he’d drop the look and he’d let out a snigger, the ‘watchdog’ demeanor vanishing just like that. He’d point out how terrible Sam’s cards were, Sam would complain, Clint would crane his neck to laugh at it, and Banner would just look even more confused from the other side of the table—but then the moment would pass, they'd deal a new hand, and everything would be back to the way it was. Bucky would lean back against the wall and fall silent all over again, his face back to that neutral expression.

The game was relaxed. No real bets were made. Occasionally, Clint and Sam would pass around a dollar or two, sending Bucky’s eyebrow raising and Banner’s eyes flicking down to his own cards, but that was it. They were just playing a game of cards as the sun set behind the trees and the thermostat clicked higher, the window cracked open to let the breeze in as they all lost and won and cheered and complained about whatever hand they’d been dealt. The room had been getting darker over the course of the last twenty minutes, but nobody was getting up to turn on the lights. As long as they could vaguely see their cards, they didn’t care. Wanda certainly didn’t.

“I wouldn’t bet this round,” Bucky said, out of nowhere.

“How 'bout I do, then,” Sam said. He slapped a twenty in the middle of the table—pocket change, considering where they were sitting and who’d owned it, but it was still the biggest bet they'd seen so far.

Bucky shrugged. “Bad idea.”

Clint dealt new hand, and Wanda examined the cards laying on the table in front of her.

“Man, just because you think it’s a bad idea-”

It was rare that they did things like this anymore, just sitting around and playing cards. Not too many came around the compound anymore, all off doing their own thing now that the world didn’t need quite so much saving, going off to live their own lives now that they didn’t have to save others’. Thor was settling the second half of Asgard, Scott was taking care of his kids, Rhodey had business in DC, Banner had his research all over the globe. Sometimes, they’d drop by unprompted, but generally, they were off doing their own things. Most days, the compound was all but deserted.

One time, when Wanda dropped by, it _was_ deserted. Just her, the staff, and a couple echo-ey hallways.

She didn’t come back for a while after that, even when Clint invited her.

Banner sighed. “What’s the point of this game again?”

“To make money,” Sam said. “Clint, hit me.”

Clint smacked Sam on the shoulder, an eager grin on his face.

“C’mon man, you know what I meant.”

“If we’re playing blackjack,” Clint said, “Then you’re going to play it right.”

Sam sighed, relented, and did the hand motion on the table instead. It was his first time playing, yet Clint kept insisting he do it “like you’d do in a casino, with the hand motions.” Sam made it clear he wasn’t going to any casinos any time soon, but still, he got smacked every time he said ‘hit me’ out loud.

Clint passed Sam another card.

Banner sighed. “I give up.”

“You just don’t like losing,” Clint said.

“Who does?”

“I dunno, but it’s not you,” he said, waggling his face down card around under a finger. “Don’t you wanna see what this is?”

“Most likely a face card. It’s only _basic probability_.”

Wanda raised a brow. “Counting cards, Banner?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “But it’s pointless.”

She could share the sentiment. She didn’t quite care for the game, didn’t really see a point in playing if nobody was having fun. They were all just sitting there at the table, playing because Clint had something to prove and nobody had anything better to be doing, the only talking being that bickering she didn’t want to get in the middle of.

The compound always felt too big when they were together like this. Like putting on somebody else’s jacket and expecting it to fit the same: off and _wrong_. Something—a couple somethings—was missing, and they just kept on trying to go on and pretend it wasn’t, even though they were just making the hole where it used to be grow wider. The compound was empty, its halls hollow. They didn’t want to think about it.

That was another reason why nobody swung by. If they could help it, they always had an excuse at the ready—Clint had his kids, Banner had his research, and Wanda had her wandering. There was always a babysitter that couldn’t stay or an experiment they had to finish or a flight they couldn’t get tickets to and no, don’t send the new quinjet, not without Ross’ permission or they’d get in trouble for it. Always something, some reason they didn’t come back to the compound. Really, none of them wanted to come back. They didn’t want to feel how hollowed out it was, how it didn’t quite fit like it was supposed to.

Sam threw a light elbow at Bruce. “Lighten up, Brucie. It’s supposed to be fun,” he said. “And lean back, I can see that card you got down your sleeve.”

“I wouldn’t be having fun either, if I had that hand,” Clint said, shrugging. “What _is_ that, 16? And I’ve got up… a 10?”

“Bad luck,” Bucky piped in.

“It’s not luck, it’s basic-”

“This is blackjack, man. Leave the math out of it,” Sam said. “And _lean back_ before I slap those cards out of you.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Clint’s peeked at that down card every hand, I can do what I want.” He pointed at the twenty still sitting, lonesome, in the middle of the table. “And my bet still stands, by the way.”

“Buck’s right, you know,” Clint said. “Betting is a _terrible_ idea.”

In a weird kind of way, she liked the compound more this way. Sometimes.

It was easier for her to wander when the compound was empty. Her whole life, she’d never really stayed in one place for long—even before Stark Industries dropped that bomb on her house that never went off, before her parents had died and she’d been left behind with her brother, she’d always been on the move. One building to the next, then another building, then another, always moving and never settling. From then on there were the protests, and then HYDRA, and then Ultron, on and on to her brief stint with the Avengers, until she’d become a fugitive, she was always on the move. Moving was her whole life. Staying made her restless, and being restless made her anxious.

Thanks to that empty compound, she could keep going. Everybody was gone. There was no reason she'd put any roots down, let alone a reason she'd _want_ to. Everybody who had ever had a _chance_ of holding her down was gone now. Her parents, all those years ago. Pietro. Vision. Natasha, who’d become an unlikely friend. All of them were gone, and, because of it, she had less of a reason to stick her roots down than ever. She just didn't want to.

The empty compound made it easier.

According to Bucky, who’d heard it down the line from Banner, Steve had done the same thing—after the attack on New York all those years ago, he’d spent a good chunk of time just moving around, exploring a world he’d never really gotten to experience, trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually, he’d settled with SHIELD, but it’d taken some time for him to get there.

“ _He got lost. Nothing left for him in New York, so he went out looking for it,_ ” Bucky had told her the day before, his arms crossed over his chest. He'd looked down at her. “ _G_ _uess you can say the same._ ”

She’d met his eyes. “ _I guess I can._ ”

And he’d nodded, slowly and silently. There was a certain pain in his eyes that Wanda recognized from the face in the mirror—the kind she’d learned to recognize as loss. Bucky stayed in Wakanda when he wasn’t at the compound, living out on the outskirts some days and settling in a room at the palace on other days, wandering around just as she was. Steve wasn’t there to hold him down, and it wasn’t like he’d gotten to know the rest of them too well. Even now, he was stoic most of the time, only a glimpse of humor peeking through like she’d been told it used to, with his arms always crossed and his body always angled towards the nearest exit in the room.

Just like her, just like Steve, he was trying to get lost.

“Or maybe we’re running from something,” she’d said, after a moment.

He’d shrugged again. “Maybe.”

Running from what, she hadn’t known for sure, but it’d sent that same pain glinting in Bucky’s eyes all over again.

Loss. They were running from loss.

Steve was gone. Natasha and Vision too. Though she supposed everybody on the team—if it could even be called that anymore—had that in common. They’d all lost something to Thanos. Clint had lost Natasha, Banner had lost Stark, and, if Sam had been close enough to Steve to get his shield, then they had to have been close. All of them had that same pain in their eyes, the kind Wanda saw in the mirror, that she could feel on the edges of their minds and see in the hallows of their faces when they came to the compound on odd days like these. Always that emptiness just lurking around, waiting for a lapse in conversation to strike. That loss.

They were all running from it.

It was buried beneath excuses, genuine and not, beneath idle conversations and card games. Every game of blackjack was just a moment they spent trying to ignore the holes where those people were supposed to be.

“You guys are bluffing. Hit me.”

Again, Clint smacked Sam on the shoulder.

Wanda sighed, looking out the window. With an ace and a nine staring up at her, she’d already held up her hand and elected not to take any more cards, meaning there was nothing she could do till the rest of them figured out whatever they were doing.

As much fun as they seemed to be having with their bickering, she could tell their hearts weren’t in it. Banner had yet to smile, Clint was tucked back into himself, Bucky had yet to mutter more than a few words, and Sam was just playing it all up to keep that silence from coming back out. They weren’t really saying anything to each other, just filling up the space. Banner didn’t want to play, but neither did anybody else—all they wanted to do was keep themselves from going back to that too-quiet, too-empty area of the compound where their steps echoed and the sunset just kept failing to keep them warm. So they kept playing. They ignored the empty seats at the common room table, and they kept playing.

She was sick of it.

She was sick of all the pretending, of sitting on her side of the table and watching Clint smack Sam or Banner whine or any of the other stuff she’d seen over the past half hour. Sick of just sitting there while the sun set outside the windows and the room was painted red, pink, and orange.

She was sick of playing.

Her eyes met Bucky’s. He nodded slightly, and she nodded back. It was a neutral kind of nod, filled with the same kind of tentative understanding they’d had from before Thanos, when they somehow ended up on the same side of the so-called ‘Civil War’. They’d charged against Stark’s little team at that airport in Germany for completely different reasons, but they’d done it on the same side nonetheless. It was _that_ kind of understanding nod.

“I’m going to bed,” she stated, getting up from the table.

Clint watched her for a moment, before shrugging and flipping the other card up. "Might as well," he said.

An eight stared up at him—a good card to have alongside that ten he had out on the table, but not the ace he needed for blackjack. Enough for Wanda to win and everyone else to lose and nothing more, the reason Bucky had discouraged the others from betting on that particular round.

“Huh. There goes your ‘probability,’ Banner,” Clint said, chuckling. As if he hadn’t known what card it was. How else would Bucky have seen it too? He went on, “Good night, don’t let the bed bugs bite, all that mumbo jumbo.”

“Who says ‘mumbo jumbo’ anymore? What are you, sixty?” Sam asked. “Sound like-”

They all knew whose name Sam was going to mention, and despite it being unavoidable when one came by the compound, nobody wanted anybody to say it.

Sam got lucky this time.

FRIDAY interrupted.

“Dr. Banner, a plane has landed on the strip outside,” FRIDAY said idly. Maybe the AI had wanted to keep Sam from making Stark’s name a known presence in the room, or maybe it was all just a coincidence, but it had the whole room letting out a collective sigh of relief.

Wanda cast a look outside. In fact, there was a plane out there on the landing strip, glinting in the dwindling sunlight as the darkness tried to swallow it up.

“That’s either good news or bad news,” Sam said, angling his head to look out the window. “Wanna put money on which one?”

The landing strip was hard to see in the near-dark, but the faint outline of a plane and the blink of the lights along it could still be seen. It looked like one of Stark’s planes, meaning it was most likely good news, all things considered. Still, she knew better than to jump to conclusions.

“Who is it?” Clint asked.

“Happy Hogan, Peter Parker, and May Parker are on board, as well as two others who address themselves as friends of Peter Parker,” FRIDAY chirped.

Wanda knew of this ‘Happy’ character, had seen him around enough times to know that he had been close to Tony and still worked under Stark Industries, but she didn’t know the ‘Parker’ troupe that seemed to be making an appearance. Outside, the door to the plane opened, and Happy stepped out with a brown-haired someone following after him. She couldn’t make out his face, but she could tell he wasn’t exactly a prisoner of any type—no cuffs, no guards, no nothing—which raised about as many questions as it answered.

Banner’s eyebrows narrowed over his eyes. “Well who’s Peter Parker?”

“Classified,” FRIDAY said.

“Classified?” Clint echoed. “To us?”

“Only Mrs. Potts, Miss Stark, Peter Parker, and May Parker can access that file. Boss’ orders.”

Not much was classified to the Avengers unless there was a good reason for it. It was part of the whole ‘open door’ policy that Pepper had decided to offer them, an extension of the ‘do whatever you want’ that Stark had (apparently) agreed to when he’d gotten back from Titan. In reality, it was just an attempt to keep them from asking questions when the people with answers were busy, on well as a metaphorical olive branch that nobody really knew what to do with. Point was: there wasn’t much that was classified to the Avengers, even when it came to Stark’s files. Hearing FRIDAY say something was classified, especially when it concerned this 'Peter Parker' boy none of them had ever heard of, was _very_ strange.

“FRIDAY, do a google for Peter Parker,” Bucky said.

“It’s called googling,” Sam said.

Bucky, once again, just shrugged.

“Peter Parker is, according to recent headlines, a former personal intern of Tony Stark. Exactly 92 minutes ago, he was mentioned in a broadcast by the Daily Bugle where he was revealed to be the true identity of Spider-Man. These-”

“Spider-Man?” Sam asked. “That twerp from Germany?”

“The one that kicked your ass?” Clint asked.

“He did _not_ kick my-”

“Hey, he beat old Buck up too. No reason to be ashamed. Apparently, the kid’s got skill,” Clint said, smiling. “FRI, mind asking Happy what’s going on here?”

FRIDAY was silent for a moment. It was tense as they waited.

“Mr. Hogan has informed me of an APB calling for Peter’s arrest in the state of New York. He has also informed me that Peter is innocent of the charges.”

Silence settled over the room again.

Sam was the first to speak. “How old is this kid? 12?”

“Peter Parker is currently 16 years old.”

She’d seen him fling himself across a battlefield, the fate of the universe in his hands as he fought to keep that gauntlet away from the hordes of Thanos’ troops, seen him get bounced around through the air until Captain Marvel had gotten her hands on him, and he was a child.

A child.

16 years old.

Wanda had seen a lot when she was 16, going to every protest she could get her hands on in an attempt to help her country, but she hadn’t seen what Peter Parker had seen. When she was 16, there were no superheroes or accords or infinity stones or weekly world-ending disasters, or any of the other things that she’d gone through later in life. She, and her world along with her, was normal until HYDRA got their hands on her.

“I was told to inform you that Boss was at MIT at that age, and that Boss had Peter under control in Germany.”

“And who told you to say that?” Sam asked.

“Boss.”

Stark had brought a child into this, and he was trying to defend it.

“That son of a bitch,” Clint said, shaking his head. He stood from the table and cast a glance outside, where four people, including that brown-haired teenager, were trailing after Happy’s round shape across the tarmac. “Stark, what have you gotten us into this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the start of this story!! Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeehaw, here's chapter 2 :))))

Whatever Stark had gotten them into, it wasn’t good.

Wanda could tell as soon as Peter Parker walked into the room.

He had a duffel bag in his hand—plain, red in color, not much appeal to it but for the sturdiness of the fabric and the size of its pockets. Nothing off about it, until she saw the way a zipper was half-closed around a t-shirt, the way a pocket on the side hung open, how it was near-empty, his hand too tense around the strap.

His eyes told the same story. They were hardened, yet filled with the same anxiety that rolled off of him in long, slow waves, with tension and fear and worry, low and dark, just behind the shine the fluorescent light cast on his face. Any second, it seemed like a wave was going to come up and wrench him under, too strong for him to fight off. He’d be dragged under, nothing to keep him afloat and nobody to call for help, flounder, and drown.

Then there was the way Happy stood at his side like a guard dog, waiting for the signal to bite. The other three, whose names Wanda didn’t know, were a pack of wolves—close and reserved, yet fierce if you were unfortunate enough to get too close. They wouldn’t need a signal to tell them when to strike; no, they’d know the exact moment, strike in the exact place they needed to, and they wouldn’t have the slightest regret about it. The brunette woman’s hands were gentle from their place on Peter’s shoulders, each set of fingers as relaxed as could be. Yet her eyes burned with an intensity Wanda hadn’t seen since Pietro had been alive.

So yes, it was easy to see that something bad had happened. From Peter himself to the way the group crowded around him, everything screamed a bad situation. She didn’t need her kind of powers to understand—despite the brave face Peter was trying on, and despite her position across the room—just simple human empathy and the mindfulness to look in the right places.

She could see it in everybody’s reactions, too. From the way Sam’s eyes flicked over to Clint, an eyebrow arched in question, to the way Clint’s shrug answered, to the way Bucky was tense at her side. Even in the way Bruce got up from the table with a searching look on his face, his hand held out for a shake. It was all there, and it all pointed to a grave situation, one that didn’t lend Peter Parker a good range of options.

Still, Bruce greeted Happy like an old friend.

“Hey Hap,” he said. “Long time no see. What-" His eyes floated between Happy and the rest of the group, "What brings you around?”

“Can we talk later?” Happy said, dropping his voice. It wasn’t soft by any means, just quiet in Happy’s own right, a low mutter that carried to the other ears in the room all the same. “It’s been a long day.”

Peter’s hand tightened around the duffel bag. It was like a lifeline, and if there was any chance of it slipping out of his hand, he wasn’t going to risk it—all thanks to the vague, muttered words from Happy’s mouth.

Talking about it, even just those few words, was enough to make it real. In your head, you could deny it and push it away and try and try to forget about it, and sometimes it would work, and you would feel better just like that—but out loud, everything was real. It was living, it was breathing, and it was terrifyingly real.

And whatever had happened, whatever bad thing had sent him there, he was already struggling to hold on. His grip was white-knuckled now, heavy with the effort of keeping that bag from slipping through his fingertips as those waves of emotion kept trying to pull him under, his eyes dipping down to the floor. That fake brave face was cracked. His free hand fidgeted with the edge of his shirt.

He was a child, something in the back of her brain reminded her. Sixteen years old, and there he was, with that look on his face and that anxiety wafting off of him.

Her heart sank.

She didn’t move, though, just stayed in her spot at the edge of the room, her face as carefully neutral as could be.

And—as if to prove her choice was the right one—the brunette woman at Peter’s side seemed to notice Peter’s reaction. Her hands dropped from where they’d been at the top of his shoulders, down to his biceps, rubbing back and forth in some semblance of a hug. Wanda assumed she was ‘May Parker,’ just from the way she stood, and from the way Peter leaned, almost imperceptibly, into her touch.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course,” Banner said. “You know where to go, down the hall to the-”

“Now _wait_ one second.”

Sam’s voice.

Happy looked back, eyeing Sam. “What?”

“What do we look like, a B&B?” he said. “You can’t just waltz in here without an explanation.”

“Sam, you’ve met Happy before,” Bruce said, trying, with a desperate look in his eyes, to placate the situation.

“Yeah, and I’ve met Spider-Kid too, but you know who I haven’t met? That APB they’ve got with them.”

Happy tensed, and his tongue seemed to get caught in his throat. “I’ll explain later.”

A moment passed. Happy and Sam stared at each other, both of them just waiting and waiting for Sam to challenge it, as they both knew he would, Happy’s eyebrows inching lower and lower. His eyes were resentful and cold, and with some semblance of peace and the end of their so-called ‘long day’ awaiting them on the other side of that hallway, she didn’t blame them. In fact, she felt the same way, wanted Sam to shut up and leave it at that.

Yet they kept staring at each other—Happy waiting to see what Sam would do, if he would do anything in response, while Sam simply stared back. Sam’s mouth was set in a hard line across his face, stilled for the first time in a long while.

“Hate to say it,” another voice, Clint’s, interrupted. “But he’s right.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “Did I hear that right?”

“APBs don’t go out for nothing,” Clint shrugged, turning to look at Happy. “What’s it for?”

“I’m sure Peter did nothing wrong,” Banner said. “Clint, you know how wrong these things can be.”

Banner was right, Clint of all people should know better than to trust the whims of any old government official—Wanda knew she certainly didn’t, and she’d had far less experience with the bad end of it all. It wasn’t right, not at all.

Wanda narrowed her eyes, but remained silent, watching from her corner of the room as Clint went on.

“Doesn’t matter if he did it or not,” Clint said. His eyes were cold and harsh, but not in the resentful, almost annoyed way that Happy’s had been. Instead, his eyes were steel, almost apologetic.

Banner kept trying. “How does it not-”

“He’s being charged with it. That’s that.”

“Since when do you believe what the _governme_ -”

“All I’m saying is,” Clint said, watching Bruce carefully, “If Ross gets wind of this-”

Bruce sputtered. “Oh, we’re bringing _Ross_ into this?”

“Yeah, we’re bringing _Ross_ into this. Or, hell, Fury’s probably got his panties in a twist right now.” Clint lifted his chin up a little higher, leaning a little further back in his chair. “We need to know what we’re keeping their noses out of— _if_ we should keep their noses out of it in the first place—regardless of whether lil old Pete did anything. Wrong move’s got us on a one-way ticket to the raft.”

Clint’s face was hardened, his posture suddenly stiff and his eyes drained of that remorse. It was a sudden shift from the laid back demeanor and easy smiles that she’d seen just minutes ago, a far cry from the ease she was used to seeing on his face. He was still leaned back in his chair like he trusted it with his life, but it was all just a mask, all faked to hide just what was going on.

“Clint, you and I both know that’s an exaggeration,” Banner went on.

“Is it?”

“He’s not a dictator, or whatever you think he is. The committee-”

“Screw the committee. They do whatever the hell he wants them to, only care about their own asses,” Clint said. “We give them one chance, and they’ll be jumping at the chance to cart us off to international waters. One _little_ slip-up; that’s it.” He turned to look at Happy. “No offense to the kid, but I’m not risking it.”

Clint, always the one to make light of a serious situation, always the one to make sure the higher-ups saw his middle finger up as he walked away, didn’t want to risk it. _Clint Barton_ —the one who’d broken her out of the compound without thinking twice about what would come of it.

Oddly enough, Wanda understood.

Ross, along with Fury and the US government and the UN, had information, and they had control, and they had _power_ —power that they could do whatever they wanted with, revised accords aside. Clint was right: one little mistake, one little step in the wrong direction was all it’d take. For once, he wasn’t ready to test what they’d do, given the chance. The fact that it was Peter Parker getting the short end of the stick didn’t seem to matter, just that there was a chance, and he knew somebody was going to take it the second they could.

He’d already lost his family twice—once when they'd been sent to the raft, and again when Thanos had won. Twice, he’d had them, and twice, he’d lost them to something he couldn’t control. Twice, he’d lost the people he loved. Sure, he’d gotten off the raft and Thanos’ deed had been undone, but the fact that it had happened could never be erased.

So yes.

Wanda understood.

But she didn’t feel the same way.

She still remembered the way the cold floor felt under her, the way her mind felt blank, the way the walls of the cell seemed to get closer and closer with each passing day, but, somehow, she didn’t find it in herself to care. That particular set of consequences didn’t mean anything—not when she had nothing to be scared of, nothing to lose or be afraid of losing. Clint had his family and his home—a family and home that Ross knew about, that was all at risk if he so much as tried to step out of line. For her, there was just the way Peter Parker stood there in front of her, his brave face falling and failing, cracking wide open like a glass shattering on a hard tile floor, and the way her heart ached at the sight of it.

But, despite that, she said nothing. She just stayed tucked away in her corner of the room, staring at Clint. No objections to his words, no defending Happy’s want to talk later, not even a cursory remark on how Peter was about to crumble right there in front of them. She just stood there, watching May Parker and Happy and those other two friends stand close, like the coiled up springs they were. She knew very well that she wasn’t scared of Ross, and yet she still stood there, saying nothing.

“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” Clint said, eyes meeting Happy’s. “I’m sure the kid’s good—I trust you Hap, otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten past the front door—but the rest of the world isn’t too sure.”

Happy met Clint’s eyes.

Nobody moved or said anything, just stood there and watched as something seemed to change in Happy’s face, silently, as his eyes searched around the room, roaming from Clint to Banner to Sam, and then to her and Bucky standing at the edge of the room, on to May Parker, with Peter in her arms.

She didn’t know what he was searching for, why he decided to freeze with his gaze on Peter’s face, but it didn’t matter. Maybe he was looking for a sign to tell him what to do, maybe he was looking for the words to respond, but he froze there nonetheless.

A heartbeat passed, in silence.

“Kid?” he asked, his voice low.

Peter’s knuckles went white around the duffel bag again.

For a long moment, Peter was frozen just as Happy was—stuck there, with words unspoken on his tongue and his hand trembling from the tension, his eyes still staring back at Happy’s while the fluorescent lights cast long, deep shadows along the hollows of his face.

Wanda wanted to tell Clint how unreasonable he was being, to point out just how Peter obviously didn’t want to talk about whatever it was so soon after it’d happened, how they should just send him and his friends along, leave Happy to discuss it with them on his own, get Peter’s word on it later.

Maybe it was her trusting Happy’s word too much, or maybe it was just her failing to keep that ache in her heart from commanding every single thought that crossed her mind, but she wanted to say it. She knew very well why Clint wasn’t just letting Peter loose in the compound right then, she _knew_ , but she just wanted to tell him anyways, get him to just sit down and keep playing cards and wait for Happy to fill them all in once Peter was gone.

Her mouth stayed shut, though, and all she did was watch with gentle eyes, her eyebrows no longer angled down at Clint, but trying with all their might to help in any way they could as she looked on at Peter. She didn’t say anything.

“It’s alright if you-” Happy tried.

“No. No, yeah, it makes sense.” Peter’s jaw was tense and stiff as he talked, and his voice didn’t quite match the false confidence on his face, but he said it. Clint pushed, and Peter said it.

Happy’s brow dipped in concern. “You sure?”

There was a moment of hesitation, where Peter’s eyes darted down to the floor and his hand clenched up on that duffel bag’s handle all over again, where momentary indecision flooded his face. But then it was passed, and he let loose the slightest, reassuring smile. “I’m sure,” he said.

Happy offered him a slight smile in return, along with a soft nod.

Then, Happy was sighing and tearing his eyes away from Peter’s, looking out over the rest of the room again. This time, his eyes weren’t searching, but they were just watching and waiting, waiting for his mind to catch up and for Peter’s words to process, for his mouth to work and start the story they all so desperately wanted to hear.

“Alright kid. Here we go,” he said. His eyes settled on Clint, and he glared.

Clint didn’t so much as twitch in response.

“I take you guys heard about those elemental things? Happy asked. “There was a rock one, water one, fire one, you know. Really big, kinda hard to miss.”

“Yeah,” Banner nodded. “Fury said it was handled.”

Happy looked right over at Banner, a bitter smile on his face.

“Was it not?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It was all fake.”

Sam looked confused, but he didn’t say anything.

Happy went on, “Bad guy, called himself Mysterio, was pulling one over on half the Northern Hemisphere. Fooled Fury and everything. Peter shut him down, saved the day, you know.”

May offered Peter a slight, proud smile. He tried to smile back—but it was just tight and forced, not enough to do anything but sadden the look on her face. His eyes dipped back down to the floor, slowly, as May gave him another reassuring squeeze.

Clint raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing something went to shit.”

“Yeah, Mysterio decided he’d get the last straw,” the girl in the back spoke up. She was tall, with a certain confident set to her mouth and a curly mess of hair tucked into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. “He framed Spider-Man for his mess.”

“And gave him a face, I’m guessing,” Sam said.

The girl looked to Sam with nothing more than the slightest nod. If you weren’t looking for it—and even then, if you so much as blinked—you would’ve missed it.

Wanda’s heart sank lower, and she crossed her arms over her chest. As if that would do anything.

“MJ,” May said, giving her a warm glance.

But it seemed MJ didn’t care. Her eyes just flicked to Peter, then back over to the rest of them, slowly but surely settling on Clint. And then she stared at him, cold and intense as could be, burning with a determined fire, yet still standing there as if she were anything but bothered by the situation.

They were backed into a corner. There was nowhere else for them to go, not with Peter’s face among them and the whole of New York on the lookout for Spider-Man, not after ‘Mysterio’ had let people know who exactly they were supposed to be looking for. She was a teenager, in the middle of a superhero-sized mess, staring down an Avenger without even thinking twice about it, and she didn’t seem to be concerned in the slightest.

“Peter didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, tearing her eyes away from Clint’s. “That APB shouldn’t exist.”

“MJ, later,” May said.

MJ’s mouth set, relaxed, and she nodded softly.

Only then did Wanda notice how her hand was slipped in with Peter’s, how her eyes kept burning.

How all of their eyes were burning just the same.

They were unconventional, but they’d come there for a reason. The fourth kid, still lurking in the back, had yet to speak—instead, he’d been spending his time seeming to grapple with himself, his eyes going wide whenever one of the Avengers spoke in his direction, then narrowing as he realized what they were saying. His eyes flicked back and forth, from Clint and Sam and Banner back to May and Peter and Happy, going through that cycle over and over again. Still, he was silent, but Wanda could see where he stood.

She could still see the fire, there, lurking in his eyes.

In all of their eyes.

All except Peter.

But he was another story. Wanda could still feel that steady stream of anxiety and worry practically radiating off of him—again, she didn’t need to have the powers she did to understand what was going on in his brain, not when it was all so clear in the expression on his face, in the way he carried himself, in the way his hand clasped that bag in his hand, in the way he’d spoken.

It didn’t matter, though. The people around him were going to help regardless, were going to support him and try to fix everything that ‘Mysterio’ had destroyed no matter what Peter thought about it. They were backed into a corner, but Wanda knew they weren’t going to stay like that for long, not if they had any say in it.

“Well shit,” Clint said, finally. “Kid saves the world—I’m assuming that’s whatcha did?”

May looked to Peter, expectant, but Peter didn’t respond. So she answered for him, resting her arm on the small of his back and pulling him close instead. “That’s exactly what he did,” she said.

Clint chuckled bitterly. “Kid saves the world—at _least_ twice—and now the whole damn thing’s turning on you.”

“Clint, have some tact. We’ve bothered them enough as is,” Banner said. He sighed, looking up at the gathered party for a moment, then at Bucky, still leaned against the wall next to Wanda. “Bucky, could you see if you can get rooms for everyone?”

There was no question about whether they had enough space, not when most of the rooms stood empty and unused nowadays. Whether their occupants were dead or off living their lives outside of superhero-ing, the rooms were empty nonetheless, and they had more than enough of them to accommodate four new people—three, if Peter already had his own room like Wanda assumed he did. She couldn’t say for sure—she didn’t know much about what Stark did in those years she spent in hiding, while she was tucked away from the rest of the world—but she knew they could find him a room just as easily if he didn’t.

And it seemed nobody was going to push the APB anymore.

Wanda sighed in relief.

“C’mon,” Bucky said, pushing himself off the wall. He waved a hand towards the hallway on his right, as if he were beckoning the rest of them along—completely unnecessary, considering Happy knew the compound better than any of the rest of them did, but it wasn’t like there were any objections. Peter Parker’s little ensemble started up slowly, following.

Happy pulled Peter closer just the tiniest bit, pulling him into a sideways hug and pressing what looked like a kiss to the top of his head. “We’ll figure it out, kid. We’ll figure it out,” he said.

Peter didn’t say anything, just let himself collapse into the hug, standing there for a moment. Then, Bucky was noticing how they’d stopped, Peter was muttering an apology, and Happy was pulling away, left standing there in their wake. Just like that, they were gone.

Happy watched them as they retreated down the hallway, Bucky’s arm gleaming like a beacon even as the light faded.

Then, after they’d turned the corner and he was left staring after nothing, he turned and sank into a chair. “ _Now_ , any questions?” Happy said, glaring at Clint for a second.

Clint just shrugged, not saying anything. They sat there as silence dragged out—now that the subject of it all was gone, it seemed they didn’t have too much to say. The question had left the room, slowly, like the air whistling out through a pinprick-sized hole in a balloon. The silence dragged on, and the hole got bigger, until there was nothing left anybody had to ask, it seemed, and they were all just sitting there and staring at Happy in silence, nobody quite knowing what to say. Her cards still lay out on the table, Sam’s $20 smacked in the middle, her eyes fixed on the way Happy seemed to melt back into his chair, even as he sat there, motionless.

The way that Peter Parker had stood there was still marked in the back of her brain, everything blank but for that. All except for one thought, the one that had been nagging her since he’d walked through the door, the one was responsible for the way her heart sank and the way her eyes softened when she looked at him. The one she didn’t want to think about.

“He is very young.”

Heads swiveled to stare at her, as if they’d forgotten she was there.

She didn’t even know why she said it. It wasn’t as if it was the most pressing aspect of the whole situation, though it did need some sort of acknowledgement at some point down the line. In fact, it hardly had to do with what was going on at all. It wasn’t even a question, just a statement.

But apparently, it was enough to break the silence.

“Too young for this kinda bullshit,” Clint said, letting out a sharp huff. “Where’d Stark find him, the playground?”

Nobody even froze, this time, as Clint flippantly said the man’s name.

“The kid was doing what he was doing long before Tony interfered. He just gave him a couple more tools for his tool belt,” Happy said, waving a hand through the air. He’d told the story a few more times than he would’ve cared to, it seemed, was bored of spitting it out again as he explained a dead man’s actions to people who wouldn’t really doubt his judgement—at least, not as much as they would’ve if Tony was there with them.

Death had that effect. All of a sudden, Natasha never lied, Tony was and always had been, irrevocably, a hero, and Steve, despite being named a fugitive at least twice, was practically going to get his own holiday. Nobody really questioned Tony’s choice in Peter, just accepted it as something probably done with a plan in mind, despite the fact that Tony was never one to fully think things through when he did them, and they moved on. They would forget that Peter was 14 when he fought against the rest of them in Germany, would just pick up the pieces and run with them, fit them together in a way that made Stark’s actions seem like the wise choices of a wise man.

“Those glasses, on the kid’s shirt,” Banner said, “They were…”

“Yeah. Yeah they were.” Happy’s voice was soft, but he punctuated it with a soft chuckle.

“Kid’s causing the same amount of trouble as Tony did, too. Figures,” Clint said. “Even when we get rid of him, we don’t get rid of him.”

Sam butt in. “Amen to that.”

“Says the man with Cap’s shield in his closet.”

“Hey, kid just got Tony off his shoulder.” Happy said. “Don’t put him back on, would you?”

Wanda wanted to ask why Tony was on Peter’s shoulders to begin with. An answer was easy, but it wasn’t right, like saying that incident in Nigeria had been all her fault. She was at the forefront of it, but there were many, many reasons why it’d happened the way it’d happened, and though it’d taken her a long time and a lot of guilt to accept that, she knew now that it wasn’t all on one person, just as Tony’s presence on Peter’s shoulders wasn’t. So she didn’t question it. She just crossed her arms over her chest, watching the rest of the room like she’d been doing the whole time, settling back into her own realm of silence.

Clint leaned back further in his chair. If he pushed another inch, she was sure he would topple right out. “Now,” he said, eye’s focused on Happy. “Start from the beginning, everything you know.”

“Come again?” Happy sputtered.

“If we’re gonna help this kid—which I’m guessing you want us to do, since you brought him here—then we’re gonna need more than the Sparknotes version,” Clint said. “So c’mon, tell us whatcha got.”

Happy sighed.

The fluorescent lights buzzed quietly overhead. As the last wisps of red and pink and orange finally disappeared from the night sky, the sound of crickets filled the silence—apparently, making the glass bulletproof did not make it cricket proof. It wasn’t like Wanda was complaining about it though, nor was she complaining as the windows opened of their own volition, courtesy of a protocol set in place by some staff member some night that she couldn’t remember very clearly. It was peaceful, easy silence, as they waited for Happy to start.

“Alright,” he said, sucking in a breath. His eyes floated around the room, lingering on each of them for half a second, before settling down on Banner. “Alright.”

And then.

He told them everything.

It seemed even Happy could be forthcoming when someone he cared about was on the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to smash that like button, my dudes :))
> 
> In all seriousness, comments and kudos are very much appreciated, they make me smile like :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/w in end notes, to avoid spoilers here. Stay safe! :)

By the time Happy was finished, the sun had long-since set. He’d told the story from the beginning—from the spider-bite and Germany to the field of tulips and the Queen’s vault, everything he could remember Peter telling him that he thought might be relevant—so it was only bound to take up a lot of time. Wanda went to sleep at 1 o’clock, just after they’d set a time the next afternoon to figure out what exactly they were going to do.

She woke early anyway, the next morning.

She’d tossed and turned all night, shifting between laying there with her eyes open, her eyes drifting off as she stared at the ceiling, and laying there with her eyes closed, trying to keep the flashes of nightmares from appearing right there in front of her eyes. Every time she managed to fall asleep, she was haunted by images of Pietro and Vision and Natasha and Rogers, and, to her surprise, even Stark himself. The nightmares always paraded themselves as dreams, starting off from far away, before they inched their way closer, and suddenly Pietro’s corpse was limping towards her. She would see calm eyes in front of hers, or maybe she’d be holding a hand, or she’d be running her fingers through hair—everything would be at peace. But then, things would change. She never really knew where they did, but they always did, dissolving away from blissful gazes at beautiful blue skies and the feeling of holding someone close, to disasters and guilt and worry. Every time she thought she’d have a nice night, it would slip away. And every time, she’d wonder why.

Usually, she was exhausted enough that the nightmares left her alone, especially if she’d been up later than she normally was. That night had been different, though.

Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was something.

Maybe it was Peter Parker, and his stunning ability to make her feel all those emotions she’d tried to shove down, time after time. Maybe it was the protective ferocity with which she’d latched onto him, and the way her mind tried to convince her it was reasonable when it was so clearly anything but. The way her heart had clenched had been too much already.

_“People don’t last forever._ ”

It was one of Natasha’s few words of wisdom, a tidbit of insight into her brain that Wanda only got whispers and straws of—never enough to fully grasp what went on behind those forest-green eyes of hers. Wanda had spilled her heart out about the stress and the fear and everything that she’d had on her shoulders while they were out there, on the run, and Natasha would comfort her. But she would never return, only offer those little bits of advice. Wanda tried to fit them together, but Natasha Romanoff wasn’t a puzzle to be solved—she was a person, whose tight lips were all-too used to keeping things locked up, who didn’t share a single piece of information about herself unless she wanted you to know it.

Wanda now saw just how right Natasha could be, in those little moments.

At the time, she’d just stared, confused. “ _What do you mean?_ ”

Natasha had looked down, watching the steam floating up off the top of her mug. “ _Everybody goes, at some point. Never at the right point. I’m sure you understand.”_

_“I understand.”_

Wanda’s voice had been heavy, saddened at the thought of Natasha’s words being true. Now, she saw what Natasha really meant, and she saw just how right Natasha could be.

So many had died, so many that Wanda had held close—not just in her dreams, not just in the moments before the nightmare took over and hope dashed out the door, but in real life. Those moments where she’d wrapped them in her arms or fallen into theirs or even those where they seemed to embrace at the exact moment, they were all dreams just the same, waiting for everything to take a turn for the worse. Waiting for something bad to happen, for their deaths to come just after Wanda would see the smile on their face.

It’d taken all night, hours plagued by nightmares and swirling, meaningless thoughts that kept pressing and pressing into every corner of her consciousness, but she’d realized what she was supposed to do with Peter Parker: stay away. Before she lost him, too.

She made her way into the common room. Her feet were soft, nothing more than a gentle tap against the tiles of the floor.

It was dark, but not the pitch black that she would’ve expected at that hour. The TV was on, the lights still off as it played some quiet show she didn’t recognize—not that she recognized many TV shows, really, but it was still something she’d never seen in passing, never heard or saw as she breezed her way around the compound on the days someone else happened to be at the compound. Two figures were slumped across the couch, one with May Parker’s middle part and turbulent, unceasing worry, and the other with Peter’s curly mop of hair poking out the top of a blanket. Peter’s mind wasn’t calm either, but still filled with that anxiety she’d sensed wafting off of him in waves before.

Her heart ached at that realization. She ignored it.

The two were slumped on the corner of the sectional, May’s arms wrapped tight around Peter. They were an organized mess of arms and legs tangled together, with Peter’s body practically tossed on top of May’s, both of them asleep despite it all. One blanket, which now seemed to belong mostly to Peter, was draped across them. Despite the faint emotions Wanda could sense under their consciousness, they looked calm. Peaceful.

Wanda kept away from the couch, clicking on the electric kettle on the kitchen counter instead. It only took a minute or two for the water to simmer, and by then, she had her favorite mug ready to go, with a tea bag looped around the handle. The mug had been a gift from Natasha, with scrawled Sokovian letters on the side and a little silhouette of a character from a movie Wanda had never seen.

_“You’ve never heard of Lilo and Stitch?”_

Natasha had wanted to watch it with her, a new part two to Wanda’s gift that neither of them had ever planned for there to be, but they never got around to doing it. The next morning, they’d had to pick themselves up and move again. Wanda had been lucky she remembered to take the mug with her.

_“You never told me what ‘ohana’ means.”_

_“It says it right there, red.”_ Natasha had smiled, just slightly.

By the time they had settled down again, they hadn’t had the chance to watch it. They never did, in fact. Apparently, it wasn’t important enough to either of them for them to remember it, or, if they managed to remember it, they didn’t think it was important enough to bring it up, to bother figuring out a time or trying to get together again so Wanda could make sense of the words scrawled on her mug. Wanda still didn’t really know what it meant—she knew what it meant, but she didn’t know why it said what it _said_. Like Natasha herself, in a way. Wanda knew what Natasha would say sometimes, would pick up on the odd vulnerable moment shining through that murky facade of hers, but she never got the fully story behind it all, never _understood_.

Wanda still hadn’t seen the movie. She didn’t think she ever would.

The kettle whistled, but she was quick. The room sank into silence again as she poured the water and her tea steeped on the counter, the light green of the bag slowly seeping out into the rest of the water as it sat there, still in every other way. She watched it for a moment, stewing in the silence.

Normally, she would take her tea and go—there was no point to standing there, no point to her hovering over this situation that she had little to no part in—but something in her conscious just didn’t want her to leave. She just stood there, her tea still swirling around in the water as she tugged the bag this way and that.

Across the room, Peter Parker dozed.

Before she’d gone to bed last night, she’d looked into him more. She knew she shouldn't have, but she did anyways.

Underneath all the news reports and accusations and lies was a normal kid with a normal life, a boy named Peter Parker who lived in Queens with his Aunt May. Spider-Man was a side job, was supposed to stick around Queens and keep out of the big leagues and help people there, not take on big things like Mysterio and Thanos. Most of his deeds weren’t the type Wanda was familiar with—that is, the world-ending kind, where some kind of aliens or some kind of evil something wanted to ‘save’ the world in some perverted kind of way—but normal, everyday kind of things. The newspapers from a week ago called him their 'Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.'

Now, they either called him a 'menace to society' or 'Peter Parker.' Some were more critical than others, while a few even stood by Spider-Man completely, but, all in all, they weren’t unanimously agreeing like they’d been doing just the day before. He'd fled the scene, they said, just like a guilty man would. Why else would he have made a break for it?

The press was divided on that exact question. Wanda didn’t blame them, not when she’d seen with her own eyes how malicious they could be if they felt like it. Just as with Clint just a handful of hours ago, she understood.

She just didn’t like it.

She wanted to help him. Not Spider-Man, but Peter Parker, the one who too much heaped on his shoulders too soon and half the world out for his blood, the one with his address circulating through the internet and his classmates sharing how they all apparently ‘knew it’ as soon as Spider-Man showed up in DC. He deserved better than the plate of bullshit Mysterio had dished up to him, and she _knew_ that.

And yet, just as with the night before, just as when she’d watched them come and go without saying a word, she just stood there. Her eyes zoned out on the TV, not really watching, and she just stood there. No sound, no nothing. She knew better than to get involved.

From somewhere in the room, a ringtone trilled out. It was barely audible, hardly even a series of quiet beeps from where she stood, a noise that she hardly even processed. From the couch, a hand reached out, fumbling, and grabbed a phone off the coffee table. There was a grumble, the blanket was flicked off of one of the messiest bedheads she’d seen in a while, and then the alarm was off just as soon as it’d come on—hadn’t even had a chance. The bedhead sat up, hands rubbing at eyes.

Peter Parker checked the time on his phone.

“Three hours,” he said, mumbling to himself. “That’s enough, right?”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Wanda said.

She didn’t know why she said it. She had a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t have, stored away in some far reaches of her brain where her common sense couldn’t quite reach them, and yet, her mouth had just moved before her mind could.

Peter spooked at the sound of her voice—he jumped about a foot in the air, landing on his feet, hands up in the air and eyes narrowed into the dim light. He was hardly more than a barely-visible outline against the lightening sky behind him, his face only a crescent in the light the TV cast on it.

A second passed. His hands dropped to his side. “Holy crap,” he said, staring at her. “You’re Scarlet Witch.”

She nodded her head in his direction. “And you’re Peter Parker.”

“Wow,” he said. He looked up, eyes wandering around the compound, going this way and that way and all over the place, as if he hadn’t just woken up from 3 hours of sleep less than a minute ago. Slowly but surely, he took in the compound around him, his focus eventually settling back on Wanda herself. “I’m at the compound.” It was a statement, yet some part of it sounded like a question.

She nodded.

“Why am I…” His eyes went wide. “Oh.”

He deflated slowly, excitement flatlining just as quickly as it’d come, his gaze falling to the floor in front of him. It was such a massive difference from the still, fake-brave Peter she’d seen the night before—here, he was animated, switching between thoughts and emotions faster than Wanda could process it. Even as the thoughts of what happened and why he was there seemed to catch up with him, he was still moving, constantly, like a fidgety puppy that couldn’t sit still.

After Ultron, Wanda was told to stop looking into people’s minds unless there was a good reason. Steve said it was crossing a boundary, Tony called it creepy, and everyone else just had a general distaste for it. She understood—She’d stopped, sworn to them that she wouldn’t look. Whether they’d trusted her on that or not was their decision.

Still, she couldn’t help it when she felt other’s emotions—like the sorrow at Stark’s funeral or fear from Clint the night before—when people gathered around and her powers reached out of their own accord. She was like a magnet for emotions, just sucked them all up without meaning to, as long as their pull was strong enough.

That was why, as Peter looked up from the floor and back over to her, she could practically feel the way his heart sank in his chest.

Or maybe it was her heart doing the sinking, and she just couldn’t tell the difference.

Or both.

Unlike a magnet, she didn’t tend to attract opposites, just any emotion that happened to float along on the breeze.

She pushed it away all the same, taking a sip of her tea. It was bitter and harsh, didn’t warm up that cold feeling in her chest. She grimaced and looked down at the mug for a moment, before looking up to meet Peter’s eyes. He was across the room, still only visible by outline of his shape and the whites of his eyes, but she met his eyes anyways.

“You guys know,” Peter blurted.

“Happy explained everything,” she said, putting her mug down on the counter. “But his everything is not your everything.”

“Still, you know-”

She nodded.

“Right. Yeah, yeah, I guess you do. Everyone does.” A thoughtful look passed over his face, and he chuckled softly. “Makes sense.”

Her heart gave another squeeze, and Wanda turned, taking her tea bag out and putting it on a napkin, dumping the too-strong tea out in the sink. Still, she didn’t respond. Telling him it would be alright would be nothing but a blatant lie, one that she knew she wouldn’t be able to tell with confidence, one that he didn’t need to hear from her. It would just remind him just how bad the situation was. So she went about dumping her tea out instead, filling up the electric kettle at the sink.

She changed the subject.

“What show is this?” she asked.

He snapped his gaze away from her, to the TV. “Oh, it’s uh- it’s called _Tidying up with Marie Kondo_. It’s this little lady, she helps people clean their houses out,” he said, a soft smile coming to the corners of his mouth. It was there for a moment, before it faded, and he looked back to her. “It’s kind of stupid, but May likes it. I like the noise.”

Wanda watched, quiet, for a moment as Marie Kondo got down on her knees in the middle of the house. She’d already looked tiny, like all of the furniture was scaled up a couple too many inches, but when she sat down, she just looked like a little doll in the middle of the house, settling down with her knees tucked underneath her skirt.

“What is she doing?” Wanda asked. On screen, Marie closed her eyes, and the music swelled up ever-so-slightly, still barely-audible even in the quiet of the common room.

“She’s thanking the house,” Peter said. “It, uh, it’s a thing she does.”

“Thanking the house?”

He shrugged. Wanda didn’t push it.

For a long moment, they were silent. Wanda watched from across the room as Marie Kondo went on and helped the couple with their cleaning process, as they talked about wanting to impress parents that were coming over and needing to feel like adults in their own homes, on and on through the interviews. It was only about a minute, but it felt so long, so stifled, and Wanda hardly noticed the TV show playing on.

Then, Peter looked away. “The water’s about to boil,” he said, softly.

The kettle whistled for a moment, before the kettle clicked itself off and settled into silence. Only the dull, softened sounds of Marie Kondo filled the space. She didn’t question him calling the kettle like he did, just stood there with her elbows propped up on the counter, knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to drink the tea for at least ten minutes anyways.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was stiff as she spoke—she didn’t really know what to say, if thanking him was too much or too little—but she just poured fresh water into her mug all the same. The tea bag was used, but it worked just as well, no problem.

She wanted to leave. Get away from Peter Parker and that feeling in her chest and the way he looked at her in the low light, with empathy and emotion in his eyes, deep and genuine in a way that she hadn’t seen in a while. Away from just standing there in silence, neither of them talking, feeling the pressure on her lungs like she was being strangled and she couldn’t quite get enough air into her lungs. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t just walk away—no, she could very easily make up a bullshit excuse and wander off. She didn’t have to stand there, waiting for something she didn’t know she was waiting for.

Yet she did anyway. And, for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why. Instead, she just remained in silence, at a sort of standoff with the boy across from her, with bullets aimed at each other with the threat of pulling the trigger and releasing everything she didn’t want released, including that deep, sinking feeling in her stomach. She stood there, swirling the tea bag in her mug just as she had the first time. Her eyes fazed out on the mug, almost hypnotized on the swirl circling round and round in her mug, while she tried desperately to get her tea bag to work as well as it probably had the first time.

Until Peter spoke, his voice quiet.

“Ms. Scarlet Witch?”

She looked up. She didn’t know how or why her brain recognized ‘Ms Scarlet Witch’ as a moniker of hers, let alone why her head had jerked up the way it had at the sound of his voice, but it didn’t matter. She just looked up, meeting Peter’s eyes in the near-dark.

Peter was staring at her, his eyes wide and shining blue in the light of the TV. Wanda didn’t know when he’d paused it, hadn’t noticed the sound cut out, but he had, and he stood there with the remote still clamped in his hand and that look in his eyes. Behind him, outside of the big floor-to-ceiling windows that made up half the compound’s walls, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. Still, Peter was cast in a pale blue light.

He met her eyes, a worried expression on his face. “Can I… ask you something?”

She paused for a moment, then nodded.

He stared at the floor for a moment, silent. A long moment dragged out between them, heavy and tense, with no other sounds to fill the void of quiet in the room. No TV show, no kettle rising to a simmer, no voices coming from the empty chairs where they’d all sat the night before—just silence, eerie and lurking over them, as Peter stood there next to the couch. She didn’t know why she didn’t make any sort of attempt to leave, but she didn’t, just stood there in silence with the hot mug in her hands, burning hot on the rough skin of her palms.

Slowly, Peter got up off the couch and made his way to the kitchen island where Wanda stood, his feet barely audible as they padded against the floor. He propped himself up on his elbows and leaned on the counter across from her. They were both still, just as the compound was. Not even so much as a breath from either of them, not one that could be heard. Just silence.

Her mug was tight in her hands, both of her hands wrapped around the warm of the ceramic, with one finger absently playing with the string of the tea bag. It was almost hot, burning, with the way she was holding it, but she still held onto it.

“Was… was Clint telling the truth?”

She stared at Peter for a moment, stunned, with her voice caught tight in her throat. “What?”

“Do you… do you guys get sent to the raft if someone knows I’m here?”

Her answer, again, got stuck in her throat. She pursed her lips, and yet she just stared at him for a long, drawn out moment, with Marie Kondo’s face was still frozen on the TV screen, just as frozen as Wanda knew hers was as she stared at Peter. She stood there, and she stared at him.

How badly she wanted to lie, to stare down his eyes and tell him that they wouldn’t get in trouble, Clint was just exaggerating like Banner said, and it was fine if he stayed there. She couldn’t lie though.

“It’s not for sure,” she said.

“But it’s close.”

Gravely, she nodded. It wasn’t like she had another choice.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. He stood up straight, burying a hand in his hair.

She paused. "What?"

“I'm sorry," he repeated. "I didn’t think- I didn’t _think_ , and now everyone’s in danger. I didn’t even think until Clint brought it up, and now I just- I’m putting you guys in danger, like _raft_ -level danger, because I somehow thought this would be a good idea.”

She stared as he stood there, heaving in a breath, his lungs struggling to catch up with the words he'd just spit out.

And then, he stilled, hands falling back to his sides, eyes going back to meet hers. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“We accepted the risk," she said slowly.

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

“Peter-”

“We hardly even gave you a choice, a- and now, you guys are in danger. If I hadn’t- If we’d figured out something else, then, then-” He stopped himself, words failing him.

It was still for a long moment. Peter’s breaths were coming in short gasps, panic on his face as he just stood there with Wanda across from him.

Every cell of her body fought the urge to comfort him, while her heart just kept thudding out that same thump thump thump, trying with all its might to get her to pull him close and tell him just how they’d fix everything. Instead, she just put her mug down on the counter, staying still.

“I saw the footage from the raft,” he went on. “You were… you guys were locked up, until Tony came, and- and _you_ were stuck in a cage.” His hands were shaking, the stress weighing down on him, breaths stuttering like a flag in the wind. “I can’t do that to you. I _can’t_.”

“Peter, the raft was a long time ago,” she said, slowly stepping around the island. “And it’s not happening again. We’re not-”

“You _are_ in danger. You just said it, you just said Clint was right,” he said. “And he _was_ right.”

“Listen-”

“I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t have even thought this was a good option. What did I-”

She couldn’t get to him. He was having what looked like a panic attack, and she couldn’t get to him. Goodness knows she couldn’t comfort him, couldn’t pull him close like she wanted to and tell him just how everything would be alright, how he didn’t have to worry about the kind of stuff he was worrying about, how she wanted him to stay if only so she could make sure he was okay. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t let herself. People didn’t last forever—Peter Parker was another person, and he would be gone just as soon as he’d come.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she _couldn’t_.

So she did the only thing she knew to do—her old last-ditch, when Pietro had started screaming from the nightmares and the guards threatened to beat him if he didn’t shut up.

Red danced around her fingers.

And Peter froze where he stood. The shaking, the anxiety in his eyes, the stress and the rambling—all of it was gone, just stopped.

His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the floor.

He hadn’t even known what was happening. His hands unfurled from the fists they’d curled into, his face melting into a blissful peace he hadn’t even had when she’d first walked in, when he was asleep. His thoughts were silent—no nightmares, not when he was out like this. Not when she knocked him out.

And, just like that, the room was quiet again.

“Shit,” she muttered.

What had she just done?

She’d knocked him out. He was there, silent, on the floor, all because she couldn’t deal with a panic attack. She should’ve sucked it up and helped him, like she so desperately wanted to do, not just given up as soon as it’d escalated. But she couldn’t. She just _couldn’t_. She knew it was wrong to use her powers on someone like that, but her brain just hadn’t seen another choice. It was scary, how fast she’d switched—like turning on a light. Or turning it off.

_“Everybody goes.”_

She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud. Not until she was kneeling down next to him, muttering it over and over like a mantra, her hands hovering over his unconscious form as she tried to figure out what to do next. 

Everything happened in flashes after that.

The light switch seemed to have been flipped again, and she was left to pick up the pieces, to float along on the current as she tried to forget what she’d just done, how she’d betrayed his trust before he could even give it to her. She didn’t remember floating Peter across the room, putting the blanket over his head, nor did she remember picking up her mug and leaving, burning her tongue as she tried to take a sip from it. She was too busy trying to ignore the way her hands were shaking, the way Peter Parker was snoring gently from the couch.

Guilt settled around her shoulders. It was cold, but it was familiar.

Look what happens when she tried, it seemed to say.

Look what happens to the people around her.

In a way, Wanda knew she deserved it. She knew that, in some kind of sick, twisted way, it was right. People around her always got hurt, ended up dead or knocked out like that. Always, always, _always._ She didn't want Peter Parker's name on that list.

So she would stay away. For sure, now. No ifs, no buts, and no maybes—just the distance she could manage and the effort to keep him away.

As she walked off down the hallway, she ignored the _thump thump thump_ as her heart tried to drag her right on back. Her mug burned in her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/w is for an anxiety attack, it starts right around where Peter asks if Clint was telling the truth. If you want me to explain what happens, just comment, and I’ll be happy to!!! :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really sure about this, butttttt here we are anyways lol.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy :))

Wanda tried to avoid Peter Parker. 

She knew that, if they met again, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes. She’d only see that panicked look on his face, the way his body had relaxed all at once and lurched to the floor. She’d feel the horror as she realized what she had done to him—to a child on the brink of panic, who just needed someone to tell them how it would be okay. She’d just feel guilty.

Call her a coward for it, but she didn’t want to feel that way, didn’t want to feel it weigh down on her shoulders again as she realized and re-realized what she’d done. So she avoided him, avoided his friends. She stayed in her room till noon. Only then did she dart out to get something to eat, have a short conversation with Bruce, and grab the book that’d been delivered that morning, before retreating back to her room in record time.

Her plan was to stay there until he left. She wanted to help—after all, wasn’t that why she started talking to him, _really_ talking to him, in the way that led to the panic attack in the first place? That urge was still there, telling her to throw her door open, apologize, and ask him what she could do to help. But she ignored it. 

Look what happened when she followed it, when she tried to comfort him: he’d seen right through her half-truths, panicked, and then she’d knocked him out. It’d been a disaster. Now, she knew better than to try to help, wouldn’t go out there and make the situation worse like she knew she would. So instead, she stayed in her room and, for lack of a better word, ignored it.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

At around 5 pm, well after Wanda believed she was in the clear with her not-at-all-thought-out plan, Clint poked his head into her room. There was a meeting. And Wanda would be going. No choice, just a tight smile and a bit of apologetic sarcasm she wasn’t listening close enough to remember. He was gone before she could object.

That was how Wanda found herself sitting in a conference room—the same one where Ross had handed out the accords and told them, in no uncertain terms, to sign them and accept the fact that there were no other options—waiting for Peter and May to sit in the two empty chairs positioned at the head. One of those chairs had been pulled over from where Tony had sat before, at the edge, watching. Where Ross once stood was now where Rhodey’s chair awaited his arrival—he was on his way in from DC—while the screen that had shown them the destruction they’d caused awaited a video call from Pepper, who was still in NYC trying to sort through the press. There was no chair for Bucky; he’d rather stand, everyone knew, and there he was waiting in the corner as if to prove them right.

It almost made Wanda nauseous, sitting in that room after so long. She tapped one hand against the desk as they waited, in silence, for everybody else to pool in, trying her hardest not to think about the dominoes that had fallen into place after they’d last left it.

It seemed everyone else was thinking something along the same lines, if not the same thing. Bruce was fiddling with his phone across from her, Sam gazing around aimlessly as if he, too, didn’t like the feeling of that particular conference room, while Clint just stared out the window, his face hardened with something Wanda couldn’t quite describe. All of them were sitting there, waiting and trying not to think about it, leaving it quiet in the room—but not in the unsettling, anticipatory way you’d hear in horror movies, rather in the way that you knew things shouldn’t be, when you knew something bad was coming and had no way to stop it, in _dread_. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what was coming, but rather that they did know. Something about it sent that same ball sinking down in Wanda’s gut all over again.

“Sorry we’re late,” a woman’s voice said. “We got a bit lost.”

Wanda looked up to see May Parker tugging Peter into the room, a slight, polite smile on her face. Wanda couldn’t help but stare; they were both so far from the pajama-clad figures she’d seen draped across the couch that morning, yet still the same—Peter was still thrumming with anxious energy, while May’s worry still shined bright through her calm demeanor. Wanda watched as they both settled down at the head of the table, watched as May hovered over Peter, watched as Peter acknowledged her. His brave face had reassembled itself since the night before, but it was still cracked. Wanda could still see the lines in his face and the worry in his eyes, all of it just as bright as it was that morning.

That morning. The pit of nausea in her stomach made itself known again.

A hand lay itself down on top of hers, stilling her twitching fingers. She hadn’t even realized they were twitching, let alone that they were tapping with the determination to wear her nails down to stubs. 

She looked up, meeting Clint’s eyes.

It was his hand on hers, soft and reassuring, firm and comforting. Unmoving. Stoic, but only in the way that an anchor was, enough to keep her grounded. It wasn’t there to just stop her tapping on the desk, but to help her calm down, to help her breathe and take it easy—while still helping her make the decision to calm down on her own. She nodded a slight nod as thanks, letting out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and trying to steady herself. Clint nodded back.

“Rhodey won’t be in for another hour, and Pepper’s got a situation with Morgan at school,” Bruce said, finally putting his phone down.

The statement seemed to bring unease to the rest of the room; Wanda could feel it as soon as Bruce said the words. Pepper and Rhodey were stoic, soothing presences, radiated a certain calm none of them could ever hope to replicate. Not having them there made everything unstable, brought another lens of uneasiness to the whole room.

“What kind of situation are we talking about?” Sam asked. “Alien attack or-”

“Just an entitled mom defending her entitled kid. Pep’s got it handled,” Bruce said, shuffling around a folder on the table. “So I guess we’ll start.” He looked up, out over the rest of the table. “Any ideas?”

The room fell silent—not for lack of wanting to help, but lack of thought on the issue, lack of a plan. The Avengers didn’t really do planning, and when they did, they often had a bit of trouble sticking to it. Improvising was an art, and over the years, they’d perfected it.

“Nothing?” Bruce asked, desperate for some kind of answer.

“I can give you one, but you probably won’t like it,” Clint said. He pulled his hand off of Wanda’s as he leaned back in his chair.

Wanda didn’t like the absence of his touch, how brief and fleeting his comfort had been. Her anchor had up and vanished and she was free to drift out to sea once again—but she didn’t say anything, just sat up a little straighter in her chair.

Bruce clicked his pen, ready to write down Clint’s suggestion. “Bad ideas are still ideas,” he said. “Go for it.”

“I say we head on down to DC,” Clint started, the picture of ease, “You know, play it cool. Then, boom, we shove a stick up Ross’ a-”

“Don’t even bother finishing that sentence.”

“In that case,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I got nothing.”

Bruce fixed Clint with a look. “Nothing at all?”

“Unless we stick the kid in some remote part of Russia, give ‘im a new name, and-”

“That’s not happening,” Bruce said, frowning.

“Why not?”

“We’re not sending him to Russia,” Bruce said, sighing and wiping his face with his hand. “Anything else?” He looked up at the rest of the conference room, his eyes pleading for anybody, except Clint, to step in.

But unfortunately for him, he was, again, greeted with nothing but silence.

“Well,” Clint’s eyes flicked around the room, from person to person, as if making sure he wasn’t going to interrupt. Then, he crossed his arms and pursed his lips, ever-so-slightly. “We haven’t had much time to consider our options,” he said.

“I’m sure you can think of something besides Russia, Clint,” Bruce said.

“I did. We go on down to DC, grab ourselves a stick, and we-”

Wanda tuned them out as they dissolved into heated bickering. Bruce would say something rational, or at least half rational, but then Clint would dig back in, reinforce his claim, say something just to get back at Bruce. Nobody interrupted, not really. Sam would pipe up from time to time, but mostly watched the shit show go on, quiet just as Wanda was. Bucky was still silent in the corner—wary, understanding that this wasn’t the way things should be going, but silent.  
At the end of the table, Peter’s face fell. May rubbed a supportive hand along his back. 

It seemed he was just as worried as ever—and with his last hopes going on to fight about whether or not lynching Ross was a good idea, Wanda didn’t blame him. Though it wasn’t like the moment wasn’t far off from how the old Avengers used to plot and plan; not in the slightest, no. The chaos was nothing new, Clint was just more bitter than he used to be, and, while Bruce was trying his best to make up for it, Steve wasn’t there to keep the rest of them in check. Wanda’s role hadn’t changed much—she’d always preferred to listen rather than to give her input, to process the information before opening her mouth—but she wasn’t exactly helping either, sitting there in silence and watching it all go downhill. Put it all together, and Peter had every right to look as worried as he did. He was at the end of the line, and this was all he had left: a couple tired Avengers more focused on arguing to focus on the real issue.

“All I’m saying is, if we get the timing _just_ right, then maybe nobody’ll notice. We got ourselves plenty of time to get the hell outta dodge, everything turns out alright,” Clint said, as if his argument was anything but a stupid, endless, and pointless tirade, as if its only point wasn’t to just fill up the space.

Bruce grew more exasperated. “Clint, we can’t-”

“Enough of this.”

Heads turned to look at May, sitting there at the end of the table with her hand still rubbing circles on Peter’s back. Her face was cold, her voice too, in a way that seemed to radiate off of her. 

“We came here for help,” she went on, “ _Not_ to listen to childish bickering.”

Clint’s brows narrowed, his arms crossing over his chest. “I don’t see you coming up with ideas.”

“ _Clint_.” Bruce’s voice was a warning.

But Clint stood his ground, his jaw working and his eyes flicking back from Bruce to May—May who was still there, cold and seething and angry, at the end of the table.

“This is how you ‘come up with ideas’?” she said.

Shock filled Peter’s face at his aunt’s words, sending his head jerking up to look at May. He tried to object, saying “May-”

But Clint didn’t seem to notice, his eyes still trained on May’s face just as the rest of theirs were.

“Look, lady, you came to us,” he said, going on as if Peter hadn’t said anything. “We’re gonna help, like I told Hap last night. But you can’t expect us to have a plan right off the bat—not when we just heard about all this a couple hours ago. We need time to-”

“You want more time? Why don’t you stop wasting mine first?”

“May-” Peter tried to interject again, but he was stopped. This time it was not Clint’s, but rather May’s voice that interrupted his.

“Peter.” May’s voice was firm. “I was told that you would stay out of their messes. No more crashing planes and fighting Captain America until you’re done with school. That was the deal. It may have gotten thrown off-” Peter winced at her side, and she hesitated. “But I can excuse that situation. Now, I’m hearing that _Nick_ _Fury_ himself asked for your help, despite the fact that there was a perfectly good team of Avengers capable of handling it?”

“May, please. They’re-”

May was quick, her anger there in the sharp narrow of her brows, but her voice was still gentle. “Peter, if any of them had taken a split second to think about this situation, then your face wouldn’t be plastered across Times Square. You wouldn’t be in this situation,” she said. “They left you to handle their type of mess, didn’t even lift a finger, even though you were _alone_ out there—and now they want _more_ _time_ to figure out how to fix it?”

“Fury told them-”

“It doesn’t matter what Fury said. They saw what was happening, and they did nothing.” She crossed her arms over her chest, turning back to glare at the rest of the room. “The least they can do is help us fix this mess _without_ wasting our time bickering.”

The blame settled heavy over the room.

Quiet followed—the only sound was the gentle hum of the air conditioning. There was shock, there was guilt, but there was quiet nonetheless, all of them just waiting for someone to speak a word and break it.

As much as Wanda, and even Peter, didn’t seem to want to admit it, there was truth to May’s words. They’d all heard about the monsters, there was no pretending they hadn’t. But they’d decided to lay low, keep themselves tucked away from the rest of the world and the press that came with it—especially after Fury told them it was handled. 

There was no need to call in the Avengers, Fury said, not when they had this new guy and Spider-Man on it. So they’d stood down—not because of a formal decision of any kind, but only with a mutual, unspoken agreement that they didn’t need to get involved.

But that new guy hadn’t been so good. And that Spider-Man was just a kid.

The Avengers hadn’t stepped in.

But they should’ve.

The blame still fell on Fury’s shoulders, on Mysterio’s shoulders, but it also fell on theirs—on the Avengers, or what was left of them, for letting the days go by as a kid tried to fight their battles. 

On Wanda’s shoulders, for not doing something sooner.

The pit sunk impossibly further down into her gut, realization slipping through her thoughts like the air slipping slowly out of a balloon.

She’d left him. Done nothing. May was right—Peter had been out there, alone, and Wanda hadn’t done anything about it. They hadn’t known the full scope of the situation, sure, but that was just a cheap excuse. They _should_ have known. They _should_ have stepped in. It was their job to handle those world-ending-type disasters, to swoop in and save the day when they were needed most. But they hadn’t. 

Wanda hadn’t. 

Like it or not, she had a hand in causing this whole situation. And still there she’d been, sitting there, watching the bickering go by. Doing nothing.

She’d done nothing. Before, she’d done nothing too.

She’d made it worse anyways.

 _Worse_.

Something buzzed, snapping Wanda back to the table—Peter’s phone, Wanda saw as he slipped it out of his pocket. It rang in his hand for a moment, and he frowned at the caller ID before trying to shove it back in his pocket.

But before he could, May’s hands, gentle despite how the rest of her seemed to thrum with anger, moved to stop him, and her eyes narrowed at the screen. 

The two of them exchanged a glance—Peter, unsure; May with those same waves radiating off of her. All centered around that phone screen.

“We’ll be back in fifteen,” she said, her voice short. “I expect a plan—a good one—by the time we get back.”

The threat hung over the air as she got up, Peter’s phone in her hand, and left the room. Peter trailed after her with an apologetic look in his eyes. The words were so far from the gentle and caring May Parker of the night before that Wanda could almost feel the whiplash across her face. But they were only there because they needed to be, a necessity, against people that had done her and Peter wrong.

That feeling—that guilt Wanda had tried to avoid since that morning, now tripled with her realization at May Parker’s words—drowned it out. It drowned everything out. She sat there, her thoughts racing too fast as the door slid shut, silent, behind the Parkers. 

Clint clicked the pen that had, at some point in the conversation, appeared in his hand—he was fidgeting, despite the cool exterior he tried to give off. Even he had been shaken by May Parker’s words. But, rather than show it, he just kept clicking that pen, over and over and over.

“So…” he started, pausing his clicking, “What-”

“That’s enough out of you,” Sam said.

Bruce took off his glasses to give his face a scrub with his palm, then perched them back on his nose. “I second that,” he said, looking up.

Along the wall, Bucky’s face was thoughtful.

“What do you want me to say?” Clint said. “I get it, she’s concerned. I would be too, if Pete was my kid. But we didn’t ask to get pulled into this mess—she can’t expect us to have a plan-”

“He didn’t ask to be in it either,” Wanda said, her voice low.

“What?”

“Peter didn’t ask to be in this mess either,” she said, looking down to her hands. “He wouldn’t be, if we’d stepped in.”

Clint’s eyebrows, which had fixed themselves up high on his forehead at the sound of Wanda’s voice, dropped down low in concern. He reached out to try and take her hand again, his other hand stilling on his pen. “Hey, Wands, don’t feel-”

She pulled away, looking up to meet his eyes. “Clint,” she said. “She was right.”

Clint worked at his jaw.

Nobody came to his defense.

It seemed like a unanimous agreement, of sorts. Nobody wanted to speak those damning words—the ones they all knew were true—for themselves. They all knew that Spider-Man shouldn’t have been involved with Mysterio, not when the Avengers were supposed to handle those kinds of situations—the world-ending, big stakes kind, where someone wanted to take over some part of the world, where the bad guys had big guns they weren’t afraid to use. The Avengers didn’t have what Peter Parker had to lose, wouldn’t have let Beck fool them so easily when they could just brush him out of the way, do their job, and realize what was really going on before the first monster was gone. They should have stepped in, but they didn’t, the silence seemed to say.

“Maybe, yeah. But we’re not the bad guys, we’re not that Beck asshole—Wanda, you- _we_ didn’t do anything wrong,” Clint argued. 

“Ignoring it makes us just as guilty,” Bucky spoke up, from the side of the room.

At that point, Clint was just trying to reassure her. He was trying to tell her it wasn’t her fault, that she shouldn’t feel guilty, offer up the support that her withdrawn hand had kept him from providing. It was the same kind of thing he’d done before the whole ‘Civil War’ fiasco happened, when he’d lifted her up and pushed her forward. But this wasn’t the same situation—this was different. And in this situation, Bucky’s words just rang true.

Before, she had done something—she had actions to excuse herself from, reasons to let herself forgive her actions. Now, she had nothing. 

Nothing.

She had done nothing, and that was what made her guilt real.

From somewhere all at once, Wanda was overcome with the urge to leave. Guilt—at her realization, at her actions, at her thoughts—all crashed down over her at once, like a tidal wave she couldn’t swim away from. It was just something new to pile on, another bit of evidence, of truth, to throw on top and watch as it weighed down on her, too heavy, too much.

She couldn’t help; she knew that. She’d only make it all worse. Just like she’d done that morning, like she’d done with the Accords and Vision and all those other times she’d tried to help and it hadn’t worked. 

But she couldn’t _not_ help. She’d be guilty then, too.

Doing something wouldn’t help. Doing nothing wouldn’t help either. 

She was stuck. 

She was _trapped_. 

And she couldn’t get out.

It triggered some sort of fight-or-flight response in her brain, sent her standing up slowly, ramrod straight, with the door out of that conference room—that conference room that only ever meant bad things and more guilt and more pain—in the front of her mind. The guilt weighed heavy on her shoulders, her mind scattered as she tried to think of what to do. How she should do something. How she _could_ do something. How she shouldn’t do something. How she should just get away, not even try to help. How she’d make it worse.

Clint jerked to attention. “Wanda, are you-”

Wanda barely heard him—she was too busy setting her eyes on the door, trying to ignore his words, fleeing before that sinking feeling in her gut finally pulled her under. But, somehow, she managed to give him a slight, tense look of reassurance.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. Her tone was steady, but fake. Even the most gullible of them could tell it was a lie.

Still, nobody tried to stop her. 

_________________

Now, Wanda wanted nothing more than to avoid Peter Parker. If she’d wanted to stay away from him before, now her brain was panicking at the thought of them being in the same building, at the slightest chance of them coming into contact. All she could hear was his aunt’s low, accusing voice, pointing out just what the Avengers were supposed to be, how they were supposed to help people and fix things. How they had a responsibility and they’d failed. They’d _failed_ , again. 

But Wanda couldn’t help fix it. She’d make it worse just by trying. She’d learned that enough times.

But she couldn’t not help fix it. She’d be at fault all the same.

As the conference room door slid shut behind her, she felt that feeling in her stomach only grow, sink itself further down. It was a numb kind of panic, a fear and an uncertainty that had sent her brain spiraling off into nothingness as it fought with itself on what to do.

What was she supposed to do?

How could she even call herself a hero anymore, if she’d sat back and left Peter—a _child_ who’d been out there alone—to handle everything? If she wasn’t even going to try to fix her mistake? If she didn’t know how? If she’d only make it worse anyways?

She didn’t know.

Now, it wasn’t that she was trying to keep away from Peter Parker—not for the same reason she had before, at least. It was more than just a fear of messing up, more than simple aversion. It was the uncertainty, the unknown, the panic at the thought of seeing his face and having no response to give him. She didn’t know what to say, what to do, how to _help_. She simply didn’t know, and it triggered some primal fear deep in her consciousness. 

But it seemed as if, again, she would be forced near him whether she wanted to or not. It seemed the universe wanted her to fully understand—as if she didn’t understand enough already—what she’d done and what she hadn’t done.

As Wanda stepped out of the conference room, she was almost immediately greeted with the sound of voices. Two voices, to be specific, coming from the group of two near the end of the hallway.

It was May and Peter. They were close to each other, Peter’s phone still in May’s hands—she was still peering down at it, her eyebrows drawn together.

Wanda froze.

“-has been calling you? Peter, why didn’t you tell me?” May looked up at Peter.

He didn’t answer. He stood there, fidgeting with the sleeve of his shirt, the silence settling in as May waited for an answer that wasn’t coming.

Wanda should’ve left. She should’ve gotten far away from Peter and May and the guilt in her head, figure it out on her own. But that fight or flight response had gotten stuck somewhere in her brain—like some kind of switch was stuck between the two, and she settled for some third option that just left her standing there, not moving, not sure what to do as her brain just stopped. If she tried to leave, her brain seemed to say, they could notice her. If she didn’t, well, they’d have to look that way at some point. So she stood there. Still frozen, watching silently.

“Peter?”

Still, he hesitated. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again before finally getting his words out.“I didn’t want you to worry,” he said, voice small and quiet.

“Peter,” May’s voice softened. “It’s my job to worry about you.”

“I know.”

“I love worrying about you. I love you,” she said, smiling softly. 

“But you shouldn’t have to-”

“Peter Parker, don’t even think about finishing that sentence.” She sighed. “Just- next time, tell me when this kind of stuff is happening, alright?” she said. 

He nodded. “I’m sorry, May.”

“No need to apologize, it’s alright.” Her smile widened, and she held her arms out for a hug. “Now come here.”

He seemed to hesitate for half a second, standing there as May held her hands out, staring but not processing her words. But then they were hugging—May’s arms were warm, soft, and inviting, and Peter collapsed right into them like he’d been waiting for the chance since they’d left that conference room.

“I can’t believe you just yelled at the Avengers,” Peter muttered against her chest.

May let out a soft chuckle. “I can’t believe it either,” she said. “But I’m glad I did. Somebody needed to.”

“But May,” Peter said, pulling away, “They’re letting us-”

“You have just as much of a right to be here as they do, Peter.”

“We’re putting them in danger, though. _I’m_ putting them in danger. If Secretary Ross comes here, then that’s it, they’ll all-”

“I don’t care what Ross says. And, frankly, I don’t care if the Avengers are in danger—if they’d done their job, none of us would be in danger in the first place,” she said, her voice still quiet, reassuring, and soft. “Peter, you’re allowed to be here.”

They hugged for a moment longer, Peter muttering a soft “thanks, May” against her, before they pulled away. Peter looked up.

Maybe it was his enhanced senses, maybe it was just some random chance, or maybe it was because Wanda had moved in some way and it’d caught the corner of his eye—she didn’t know. But, as Peter looked up, he noticed her all the same.

“Ms. Scarlet Witch?” he asked, his brows dipping in concern. A split-second analysis had been all it took to realize something was wrong. “Is everything alright?” he asked.

It sent May’s gaze over too, and still, Wanda stood there like a deer in headlights, staring back.

“Ms-” Peter went to ask again. Somehow, it was enough to flick that switch right back where it belonged, to put that need to _run_ right back in her head. 

“Yes,” she said, her voice unsteady and rushed. She hated the sound of it, but carried on anyways, not really aware of what she was saying. “Everything’s alright. I only needed-” She wasn’t sure what she needed, so she stood there for a moment longer, her mouth moving but no words coming out of it. Frozen again. Just like that.

Peter stepped forward.

That was enough. That reverie was gone just as soon as it’d come.

“I’m sorry,” she said. As with everything she did or said concerning Peter Parker, she wasn’t quite sure why she said it. But some anxious feeling in her gut had sent it boiling up, like the hot white froth of a pot about to boil over and burn when the heat was too high.

Peter looked quickly between her and May, then kept stepping forward. “Ms-”

The walls of the conference room were clear—Stark had been smart enough to make them soundproof, but not opaque, for some god-forsaken reason—and she could practically feel the eyes of the team on her as she stood there.

She felt them, all of them, staring at her.

Could feel the worry and confusion and shock, radiating off of them, rolling along like harsh, jagged waves that hit her all at once. Her powers seemed to soak them in, her panic only growing, and yet, still, she stood there for a long and drawn out moment, her eyes darting from person to person—from Clint’s concern to Bucky’s broken poker face to May Parker’s worry, then all the way over to Peter.

She knew it wasn’t all her fault—again, just like everything with the Accords and Ultron wasn’t her all fault—but her mind kept blaring out at her, that feeling just getting stronger and stronger in her gut, sinking down and down. All she could see was that look on Peter’s face that morning, the panic and the fear all mingling together as he looked back at her. And then there was the look in May’s eyes—it was enough to send the guilt crashing down all over again.

Her brain kept refusing to move, still stuck on that same spot as the instincts responsible for saving her just short-circuited and left her, standing there. She was stuck, still stuck. Unsure, scared, panicking, her mind moving a million miles a minute but her body standing perfectly still.

Her hands trembled at her side. 

Peter stepped forward again.

He must remember what she did, how she’d knocked him out and used her power against him. He knew, too, what she hadn’t done—how she hadn’t helped him with Mysterio, how she’d sat there and let it happen without so much as lifting a finger. He knew just as well as she did.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, not sure of what else to say.

“I-it’s oka-”

But, before Peter could say anything else, Wanda made a split second decision—the same one she always made, when she was scared and confused and felt this way, felt that _sinking_ growing in her stomach with each second that passed. That switch in her brain seemed flip again.

She turned, and she left.

No part of her was sure where she was going or why her brain had suddenly decided to kick it into high gear, but she was leaving, and Peter Parker wasn’t chasing after her, but none of it even mattered because that guilt was still pounding hard in her stomach.

Maybe she was right before, when she’d chatted with Bucky. She wasn’t looking for something when she left and went her own way.

She was running from it.

And, right now, “it” was Peter Parker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha look here I am. This should not have taken me this long, I mean I got life stuff but I totally have spare time. I just kinda got stuck in a rut, you know? I couldn’t really write without loathing the idea of it. It’s mostly passed now, but like, the next update probably won’t be soon(?) especially with college apps coming up, I guess.
> 
> Also, side note, it’s not my intention to make Clint an asshole, so I hope his motives make sense here? If not, just lemme know, cause what I’m trying to do with him is complex and it’s really pushing me out of my comfort zone as a writer, so I wanna make it make sense for everyone :)
> 
> If you liked it, please comment,,,,,, they make me so happy ;-;


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this took forever!! But the bright side is, I've already written chapter 6!! So it shouldn't be too long!!

Wanda didn’t care if it was cowardly. Her mind was made up: she was packing her bag, and she was leaving. And this time, she had no intention of ever coming back—this was it, her leaving once and for all. 

She knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. She knew it’d probably be better if she stayed, at least tried to do something, _anything_ to fix the situation, instead of just leaving and never looking back. She knew she was just running away again, that she was just going to keep running and running and running. She knew it’d never solve anything. She _knew_ that. From the bottom of her heart, she understood that this decision was one she’d probably regret.

The thing was, she didn’t care.

She’d tried. Look what happened—she just hurt people.

And then she hadn’t tried, ignored it all, and look what happened. Same thing.

It didn’t matter if she was trying to help or not. Not here, not now, not anymore—it all led to the same place, to people getting hurt because of her. As long as she was around, people were going to get hurt, and she was going to be the one that hurt them. Always. Running was cowardly, but really, did she have another option?

No, she didn’t.

She hurt people. And so she needed to go, get away, before she made it worse. Away from the silent hallways and the empty chairs and the tense games of blackjack and the stiff smiles, away from the blame and the guilt and Peter Parker and his falling expression. She was out of options—had been as soon as she’d messed up the first time. All she could do was leave and never look back.

That’s why she was standing there, her bag open on her bed with most of her belongings stuffed inside. It was only dusk, yet her room was shrouded in darkness, the sun setting softly on the other side of the compound. The common room, she knew, was just as beautiful as it’d been the day before, the sunset just as spectacular. If it were any other night, she might’ve gone up to the roof to watch the light slowly die away, the sun slowly sinking below the horizon—she’d see the pine trees, the sun reflecting on the pond, the fading colors of the sky. She’d feel the breeze on her face, the warm of the roof under her hands. She’d be at peace, calm, watching. The vision was almost there, in front of her.

Yet it wasn’t.

Her room was a cool blue, secluded from the beauty of the sunset falling. All the clothes she’d had in the dresser, all the books she’d stacked on her nightstand and all the pictures she’d propped up, bare of any frame, against the vanity—all of the things she’d brought with her, all the things she’d set up in the hope of staying around—she shoved back in her bag. The pictures were pressed between the pages of her books, the clothes folded in on top of them, her mug from Natasha safely wrapped among it all. It was messy, the way she tossed it all in, but she didn’t care.

It hadn’t hit her quite yet—that, after that moment, she never intended on coming back, not unless there was no other choice. Somehow, it just hadn’t registered. Some part of her brain was lagging behind, not quite convinced that this was the reality of the situation.

Part of her didn’t want to leave.

But here she was, packing her bag—no place in mind, just the desire to leave and the motivation to do it. Ripping the band-aid off, in a sense, to keep herself from doubting the decision she was making. It was the only option.

So, she was leaving.

She went on packing, turning on a lamp when the room got too dark to see her hands. Piece by piece, everything stacked up in her bag, until the room was barren—almost exactly the way it’d been before she arrived. She was quick, hasty.

Until, there was a knock at the door.

The door yawned open, wide and dark, over her shoulder. She hadn’t even closed it; why even bother? It wasn’t like she was trying to hide. She was in much too much of a rush to even bother, and it wasn’t like anybody was going to stop her. She’d made up her mind, and there was no changing it now.

So she ignored the knocking, shoving a shirt in her bag all the same. If they had something to say, then they should say it and leave. It wasn’t like it’d make a difference.

Clint rounded the corner, leaning against the door frame with all the ease in the world. His whole body seemed to suggest ease and relaxation—yet, despite all the literal posturing, he was tense. All it took was a trained eye and the sliver of his face she could see: from the way his shoulders were set, his hands hanging, restless, by his side, to the way his neck tilted into the frame. She could tell.

Who he was faking it for, well, that was up for debate.

A long moment passed as he stood there, silently watching from the corner of her vision as she refused to acknowledge him. He just kept staring at her, expecting a response that wouldn’t come. Neither of them said a word, both waiting for the other to do it, the air growing tense between them.

Until, finally, he broke the silence.

“Peter’s leaving.” It was almost idle, the way he said it—as if it were nothing. “Apparently, kid’s been getting calls from Fury.”

Wanda kept moving, still paying him no mind.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “So,” he said, “We’re shipping him off.”

Shipping him off?

Her hands faltered, just barely. It was slight, hardly even noticeable.

She wanted to ask questions—who, what, where, when, why, really _why_ —but she just stood there, hesitating, a shirt in her hands just waiting to be stuffed in with the rest of it all.

The moment passed, and her hands went on. She kept going, kept ignoring him. He was stubborn, but she was too—that was something they, woefully, had in common.

As such, he went on too.

“You know, I’m not here to tell you to stay or not,” he said. “That’s your decision. You’re a big girl, you can make it.”

Why else would he be there?

He’d seen what happened outside the conference room, saw her reaction when she was inside it. He knew how she felt and, despite his attempts at pretending, she knew how he felt too—he wanted her to stay. So why bother coming there, telling her about Peter Parker and pretending it was anything but a guise to talk about her decision?

“But,” he said, going on—it was almost like clockwork, the way she expected that word. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Wanda’s jaw clenched.

She just wanted him to go away. She just wanted him to go away, to stop _complicating_ things, to just _leave_ so she could too. 

She let out a steadying breath, trying to stand her ground and let his words slide right off like they were supposed to. All she had to do was ignore him until he left, keep moving. So she stood there, watching him from the corner of her eye, giving no response.

“You should think about this kind of thing,” he said. “Know why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

Again, she was silent. Still, he lingered.

“And I don’t think you do.”

“Enlighten me, then.” Her words tumbled out of their own accord, stilling there in the stifling darkness of the room, her eyes still staring down, resolute. All her frustration, sitting there, for him to see.

He stepped forward, pushing himself off the door frame. “You’re blaming yourself, for all this.” Slowly, he advanced. “But it’s not your fault,” he said. “Fury kept us in the dark, we’ve been scattered all over the place. And, hey, who wants to call on the Avengers anymore? We’re old hat.” He paused, watching her carefully.

She could sense the desperation, the way he tried and failed to put it on hold. It was a good effort, and she appreciated it—it was better than senseless nagging and pleading—but she still wanted nothing more than for him to leave, for him to just let her leave. He could keep giving excuses, one after the other, but none of it was going to change her mind.

“This wasn’t your fault, Wanda,” he said. “It’s nobody’s fault, not really. There’s nothing we could’ve done.”

Finally, she turned around to face him. She was silent for a moment, meeting his eyes, holding them, before her gaze fell to the floor. Her resolve was there, and it wasn’t going to move at Clint’s words—not this time. “We could have prevented this,” she said.

“Wanda-”

“If it wasn’t for us, Peter Parker wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“How’s leaving going to change that?”

She looked up, staring him right in the eyes. “I thought you said this was my decision,” she said. 

“Doesn’t mean I don’t care. Sure as hell doesn’t mean I can’t offer some friendly advice.” He shrugged, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes holding steady on hers. “Just… think about it.”

A pause. Her brain cycling through his words, processing as he stood there, silently staring at her from the doorway. 

Finally, she turned around, putting her back to him. It wasn’t enough, none of it was enough to change her mind. She wouldn’t let it. “I’m leaving,” she said.

Putting one more thing in her bag, she looked up, eyes quickly scanning the room for anything she’d missed. Upon finding nothing—the room was exactly as she’d found it, but for the glass of water on the nightstand—she zipped her bag shut and pulled it onto her shoulder.

“Why?”

She froze, for a heartbeat. “What?”

“Wanda, do you even know why you’re leaving?” he asked.

For a moment, her mind went blank. She’d had the same answer on her tongue just a second ago, but then… blank. Nothing. Her mind trying to wrap itself around the question, dig deep into it.

Until.

A picture of Peter Parker came to the forefront. Peter the night before, with the fake brave face. Peter, falling to the ground in the middle of a panic attack. Peter, out in the hall, in his aunt’s arms.

All because she couldn’t help—she made it all worse. Because she hurt people.

She was sick of it. Sick of hurting people, sick of this _feeling_ that she got in her gut whenever she hurt someone. And so, she was leaving—running away, again, to get away from the hurt she’d left in her wake.

“This isn’t about Peter,” Clint said, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Not really.”

She stared at him, long and hard, for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s about everyone else.”

“What?”

“I’m done—with all of this,” she said. “This team, this building, _you_. I’m done.”

Clint stared at her, lips parted in surprise, for a split second. Then, he seemed to catch himself. “Wanda, that’s not…” he started, voice gentle, before he trailed off.

“I hurt people, Clint. And I’m- I’m done with it. I’m done with this,” she said.

“Wanda.”

She moved towards the door, but he didn’t move. Still, he just stood there, in her way, keeping her from leaving even though he said he wouldn’t, just like she knew he would. “Please, just let me-” she started, but he stopped her.

“ _Wanda_.”

She came to a stop, standing in front of him as he blocked the doorway. It wasn’t threatening, they both fully knew she could move him if she wanted to. But still, there he was. A statement.

But then, he gave in.

“Wands, none of this is your fault. None of any of this is your fault. Even if it was, who cares?” he said. “But-” he sighed, “If you really want to leave… Like I said, I’m not gonna stop you.”

He stepped aside.

“Just- you’re welcome back any time. Remember that.”

She stared at him.

Hadn’t he seen everything she’d done, how she made things worse and worse just by being there? She hurt people, just when she was around them. And she didn’t care if Clint didn’t believe her—no, he didn’t see the whole picture, he didn’t understand, and she wasn’t going to bother dealing with it.

She was leaving. She didn’t care if he’d tried to stop her or not, that he’d said those words and offered a return she didn’t want. She knew exactly what would keep happening if she stayed, if she came back, what she’d end up doing and how it’d hurt people, and she didn’t want to be around long enough for it to happen. She wouldn’t.

So she pulled away from Clint, her eyes falling to the floor, and she tugged her bag further on her shoulder. “Goodbye, Clint,” she said.

He nodded. That was it.

And with that, she stepped out the door.

____________________

She found Bucky fast. He was in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hand as he waited for it to cool, alone but for the low mutter of the tv and the clouds in the sky outside. He didn’t seem to be doing anything, just stood there lost in his own thoughts, his body leaned against the counter and his shadow splayed out against the floor.

If anyone could get her out fast—even with Ross’ eyes on them—it would be him.

Their conversation was short.

He agreed. No questions asked.

And yet, Wanda couldn’t help but get the feeling he didn’t want her leaving—there was a certain resignation, a disappointment, in his eyes. Like he’d only agreed because he didn’t want to be the one to say no. He seemed to understand, but he didn’t seem to like it.

She didn’t care.

The jet—Wakandan, she was pretty sure—was there within five minutes. How that had happened, how Bucky had managed to pull those kinds of strings, she didn’t know. She just knew that, five minutes after he’d made a short phone call, it out was there, a shining beacon gleaming in the low light. 

She told Bucky her thanks and left.

As she made her way to the airstrip, that sinking feeling came roaring back to her. Each step she took, each _click clack_ of her heels along the tile was loud, echoing, empty. The feeling just kept growing and growing, eating away from the inside with every step she took.

She ignored it.

Outside, the sun was still sinking towards the horizon, still lingering, not quite ready to give up as it floated just above the treeline. No more pinks, reds, and oranges spreading out across the blissfully blue sky, just wisps of light struggling as darkness set over the sky.

The sinking feeling got worse.

And worse.

But it didn’t matter.

She stepped out onto the strip all the same, her heels _clack_ ing along the pavement and her bag swinging from her shoulder. Finally, she would leave it all behind, go somewhere where she wouldn’t hurt those she cared about, where they could eventually forget about her. A new chapter, a new life—one that she had control over, where she could _forget_ about everything that she had left behind. Everyone she had hurt. 

It was right there, just in front of her fingertips. The jet, just waiting for her to sit at the controls, waiting to whisk her away. Just one more push, and she would finally do it, get away from it all. So close, she could almost touch it.

Until.

The rumble of an engine, the sound of a plane coming in for a landing—or rather, a jet coming in. Roaring, from not far away. 

She looked up, and her eyes landed on the black spot in the sky, getting bigger as she stood there and stared at it. The distinctive shape of a Quinjet, zooming closer.

She could count on her hand the number of people that could walk off that ship. 

None of them were good, not for her, and certainly not for the people in the compound behind her.

The jet was fast. Before she knew it, it was landing on the strip in front of her with a _thunk_ , the engines cutting off as the door hissed open. Wanda could do nothing but stand and stare, frozen, as they all stepped out.

Nick Fury. Maria Hill at his side. A small team of soldiers behind them, black duffel bags in hand. No guns, no mass of reinforcements, about ten people total. An illusion, Wanda knew—there were most definitely more on the way.

Fury stepped forward, looking Wanda in the eyes. “Leaving so soon, Ms. Maximoff?” he asked.

She stared at him, eyes flicking over to her own jet, which was sitting and waiting for her across the landing strip. His eyes followed hers.

“Hill, check the jet,” he said, giving Hill a flick of his head. Then, his eye locked right on Wanda. “Just to be thorough.”

All at once, Wanda felt her heart drop. 

They were there, with soldiers lined up behind them. More on the way, all of them with their attention aimed at the people sitting there, innocently unaware, in the compound behind her. They were going to stop her—they didn’t want her to leave, were spending time making sure she wasn’t going to leave.

Soldiers keeping them from leaving, marching towards the compound. 

There was only one way this could go.

Disaster.

They’d all end up where they were before, stuck on the raft with no way out. No Tony Stark to dig them out this time, just a violation of the Accords and a lifelong sentence on their hands. Peter Parker, stuck in there with him—just like the rest of them, for trying to help people.

Wanda could make it. She knew she could make it. Her powers were strong, stronger than anything Fury or Hill had on them, and her jet was within reach. Fury’s was even closer. She could run for it, not look back.

It’d buy the rest of them time, wouldn’t it? Every second she delayed those soldiers sitting there on the landing strip was a second more the people inside got—and here, with those assumptions on the table, every second was more important than the last. Until whatever reinforcements arrived, she could do it. Fury, Hill, and their little group of soldiers was no match for her powers.

For a split second, she wondered why they’d even tried.

But by then, her mind was made up. 

Time seeming to slow around her. She locked eyes with Fury. A second passed, silent, slow, seeming to go on forever.

As Hill stepped closer to the jet, Wanda felt energy course through her. It was familiar, soothing, and strong, just as it always was. It was desperate—a little more than she was used to, all of it coursing through her veins and bouncing along her fingertips. But she could handle it.

A flick of her hand, and Hill went rolling across the tarmac. It wasn’t enough to cause harm, just enough to send her off her course. Just enough to give Wanda time.

And then the wind was rushing past her ears as she sprinted for it, her bag banging into her side as she clutched it close, her powers boosting her to gain more and more ground, faster and faster. Fury’s men raised their guns, but Wanda was on them, sending out a blast that had them hurtling backwards.

It was more than it should’ve been. But they were wearing armor. Wanda kept her eyes trained on her jet’s door.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hill rolled onto her stomach, pulling a gun from her holster.

Wanda, with a burst of energy, sent herself flying up into the air. She could make it, she had time.

But it was too late.

Pain exploded in her left thigh—then, and only then, did she register the sound of Hill’s pistol, ringing out across the tarmac.

She fell forwards, landing with a _thud_ onto the metal doorway of her jet. A grimace covered her face.

_Keep going._

She’d felt so much worse. A bullet, sunken into her leg, the crimson of her blood spilling out on the metal—it was nothing.

_Keep going._

She clambered up, clutching onto her bag, gritting her teeth against the sting of the pain—nothing was more important in that moment, than the few belongings she could hold onto—and scrambled into the hold, tripping and landing sprawled out on her stomach. A blast of red energy, and the door was forced shut behind her, groaning as the metal bent into position. The hydraulics screamed out in protest, but she didn’t care, feeling the jet’s engines start to rumble as it rose up into the air.

Outside, Fury’s men scrambled to do something. Fury just stood there, watching, a glint in his eye.

And, just like that, it was done. She was on board, safe. It was over.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position, her breath coming out hard.

Her leg bled. The bullet had gone clean through, leaving that hole in its wake. No femoral artery, she was pretty sure. The plane most likely had medical supplies on board. She’d be fine—it was just a shot, she’d be fine.

A small price to pay. In return, she had the compound behind her, shining in the setting sunlight. Pinks, reds, and oranges reflected off the glass as Fury and Hill stepped up to the compound, the black-clad soldiers trailing in their wake, bags in hand. 

She was gone. She’d left.

She wouldn’t hurt anyone, not anymore.

And yet. As she stared at the forms marching along the tarmac, she couldn’t shake the thought that, maybe, just maybe, this was a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thrive off of validation, so please leave a comment down below!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I should get it out there that I feel no emotion for Vision, which is why this ended up like it did. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy :)))

The jet was quiet, invisible against the night sky. Simply a blotch where the stars didn’t seem to exist, glowing softly in the moonlight as it floated among the clouds. Lonely, almost. Hollowed. 

Wanda didn’t know where the jet was going, nor did she know why it was going there. It was taking her away—far away, if the ETA was any indication. Wakanda, she supposed; it was a neutral space for people like her, safety, the only place Bucky would think to send her. They wouldn’t hold her, just like they weren’t really holding her in that jet. They’d just let her stay, decide where to go next. Where that was, Wanda really didn’t know. Right now, all she wanted was to get away. The jet drifted along, indifferent, as Wanda sat there and wondered in the pilot’s chair.

She’d bandaged her leg up. It still hurt, and her bandages had definitely not stopped all of the bleeding, but really, she didn’t give it much attention. Maybe she was deliberately ignoring it, maybe it’d just faded from her mind, she didn’t really know. 

She didn’t really know a lot, in that moment. It felt as if, somehow, the world around her didn’t exist. The plane, the quiet, the escape from everything she’d known—it all felt so surreal, a dream fading away before she could even wake up. Part of her just wanted to float like this, caught between two times, two places, two versions of herself, for as long as she lived. She knew it was impossible: the plane would land, the dream would end. She’d have to come to terms with the decision she’d made.

She’d have to consider the possibility that, maybe, it was a mistake.

There, floating along inside the plane, it was easy to ignore that voice in the back of her head, the one telling her to turn around and run into the compound’s open arms. It was easy to ignore it all when she was up there, lingering between her decision and the consequences she’d have to face. Forgetting about it entirely, though, wasn’t quite the same.

She knew she’d already made her decision. She knew that this was the right thing to do: that she had to run, get away before she hurt anyone else. She knew that there would be consequences, but those were thoughts for another time. She knew that there were no other options, not really.

But, yet.

Her decision still didn’t feel right.

Clint’s question kept cycling through her thoughts, over and over: “ _Do you even know why you’re leaving?_ ”

It wasn’t that she couldn’t answer the question—just as before, the answer was certain on her tongue—but that the answer, like leaving itself, just didn’t feel _right_.

It was the only option. 

Wasn’t it?

The doubt crept in through the corners of her thoughts, but she brushed it away. The jet was already flying towards Wakanda, her decision already made. She knew that, as bad as the decision felt, it was the right path to take—not for her, but for everyone else she loved.

As wrong as it felt, she would stand by it.

She shivered in the cold of the jet, her sweater not doing much to keep out the chill of the atmosphere. Somehow, she hadn’t noticed until then. Her hands were frigid, her arms wrapped around herself of their own accord, and she’d just sat there in the cold, thinking about everything she didn’t want to think about. She focused on the cold, redirecting her head—it was something she could fix easily, for now.

She reached down, her hands finding her bag, and dug in to search for her jacket.

That familiar red, the same one she’d had since the beginning.

Past the books, past the mug, past the clothes stuffed inside, all the way to the bottom of the bag. Mindlessly, she pawed through it all, until her hand touched canvas. Not the leather she’d been expecting, that she’d thought she’d shoved to the bottom to protect, but the canvas of the bag itself.

“What?” Her voice was a whisper, yet it felt deafening in the silence of the jet.

She looked through it all again, digging from the top down, her hands moving faster. Every piece of clothing that passed, her eyes darted this way and that, searching, searching, searching. Gasping for even a hint of that red, the familiar red that she knew more than anything else. She just needed something: a hint, a trace, a clue, anything to tell her the jacket was there, _anything_. 

Nothing.

It just… wasn’t there.

It wasn’t there.

How?

How could it not be there?

Did she leave it?

No, no she wouldn’t leave it. She remembered, she thought she remembered putting it in first.

Did she?

She pulled herself back upright, her hands curled around each other. Her head spun. Her eyes got stuck on the dark of the night as it flew past, the jet darting along through the clouds, indifferent to her sitting in its pilot chair.

It was impossible. 

It… she couldn’t have lost it.

That jacket, as insignificant as it’d seemed at first, was the whole reason she’d gotten close to Natasha, the whole method to the madness that was the start of their friendship. It all went back to that jacket, that day when Ultron attacked. To the aftermath, when she’d asked Natasha if she wanted it back.

“ _Keep it_ ,” Natasha had said, sliding it across the counter.

Wanda had stood there, not sure of how to react. How was she supposed to? There was the woman she’d been warned against for a large part of her life, standing there in front of her and giving her a jacket, and, even weirder, Wanda had wanted to take it. It was in that moment, as she struggled to respond, that she’d realized just how much things had changed.

“ _Why?_ ” she’d asked, the question falling from her lips before she could stop it.

_“Gonna have to be more specific there, Red.”_

_“Why are you giving this to me?”_

Natasha had paused, looking over Wanda for a long moment. And then, in the blink of an eye, there was a small, unexpected smile on her face. _“It suits you.”_

Somehow, Wanda knew it was genuine—she didn’t know how she knew, but she did. There was something in Natasha’s tone, in the look in her eyes and that small smile on her face, that stood out. There was a certain imperfection, a vulnerability to it, that she knew was impossible to fake—even if you were Natasha Romanoff.

All these years, Wanda had held onto that. All these years, she’d held onto one little smile in the back of her mind. The jacket was a reminder.

And it was gone.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t lost it before—she had, when they were on the run. It’d been stuck, away from her, within the concrete and steel of the compound. 

She remembered the night after she’d realized it was gone. It’d been dark, a thunderstorm beating against the windows of the London townhome they were squatting in, and she’d been sitting there on the edge of the bed. It was dark; she hadn’t bothered to get up and turn on the light. The streetlight had shone in, a soft yellow glare that flickered every so often. The boys were somewhere downstairs, trying to come up with a solid course of action.

She still remembered how Natasha’s voice broke the quiet—softly, gently, sneaking up on her in the way that Natasha liked to do. A slight, “ _Hey_ ,” as she entered the room, her shadow slinking across the floor.

Wanda remembered how her own voice sounded, as she responded. “ _Hey_.”

_“Something up?”_

Wanda had shaken her head. “ _Nothing_ ,” she’d said. She should’ve been down there, helping the rest of them plan. Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten discovered two days later, if she had.

_“Seems like something to me.”_ Natasha sat down next to her on the bed, the springs squealing in protest as she propped herself up on the edge.

_“Did Clint send you?”_

_“No.”_

_“Then-”_

_“Then why am I here?”_ she interrupted, fixing Wanda with a look. Finally, their eyes met. _“You’ve been quiet all day, and, for some reason, Clint’s the only one that knows why. Call it curiosity.”_

Wanda had been trying, she really had, to put on a brave face for the team. They didn’t need her to be upset over something so insignificant—it was a jacket, for goodness’ sake, and it wasn’t like she was the only one who’d lost something—but, apparently, it wasn’t enough. Though now she knew that nothing ever got past Natasha, no matter how hard you tried.

_“So come on,”_ Natasha had pushed. _“What’s up?”_

_“I lost something.”_

_“Well, what was it?”_

_“It’s not important.”_

_“It’s obviously important, if you’re upset about it.”_ Natasha had stared her in the eyes. _“Don’t leave me hanging here.”_

_“Your jacket. The one from Ultron,”_ she’d said. She’d broken Natasha’s gaze, looking down to stare at her feet as they propped her up on the edge of the bed.

_“Didn’t you take that from me?”_

Wanda looked back up, surprised, only to be greeted with the slight smile on Natasha’s face. She felt her own smile, just barely, there in the corners of her cheeks. “ _I offered to give it back,”_ she’d insisted.

_“Guess I forgot that part.”_

Wanda had smiled wider. In that moment, she’d forgotten about it all—for just the briefest moment, it was all gone. But then, it’d all come rushing back in, never really gone, just waiting until their smiles faded and the silence crept back into the room. As they sat there, the moment was over as soon as it’d come.

_“It’s important to me,”_ Wanda had said. _“It shouldn’t be, but it is. And now it’s gone.”_ As stupid as it felt, she’d known it was important. It’d been her first gift from any of the Avengers, a sign that she was welcome among them, that they weren’t just waiting for the right moment to leave. It’d been reassuring, a comfortable and familiar weight around her shoulders. A reminder of the team she loved.

_“It’s hard,”_ Natasha had said, after a moment. _“But there’s nothing we can do about it.”_

Wanda’s gaze had drifted away, settling on the wall across from them. _“I know.”_ Things changed, things were lost, things were gained—she knew very well just how much could change, and she knew just how helpless she could be in it.

They’d settled into silence—a mutual understanding that didn’t really need words. There was nothing they could do to fix the situation, just an “ _I’m sorry,”_ on Natasha’s lips that they both knew she’d never say. The rain went on outside the bedroom window, thunder booming in the distance. The voices kept floating up from below.

Natasha had sighed, just slightly. _“I should go wrangle the boys, before they do something stupid. You know how they are.”_

Somehow, Wanda had smiled again.

Back in the jet, back where Wanda was sitting in the pilot’s chair with her head bent over her bag while the clouds drifted past, she smiled, too. At the memories, at the feeling of Natasha next to her, at the way it all seemed to lap on the shore of her mind, there but not there, filtering through her thoughts like an afterthought. All as she sat there, zooming away from it all.

Two days after that conversation, they’d found themselves in Austria. Wanda woke up in a dead man’s bed, the sheets harsh and peppered with holes, covered with someone’s childhood quilt. On the bedside table, there was a mug—a mug with scrawled Sokovian lettering on the side and a cartoon character she didn’t recognize on the front. 

Another gift, this one to replace the loss of the last.

Written on it: “ _Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”_

She smiled, again, at the memory of it.

Just after, they’d all gone their separate ways—or rather, they’d been forced to. She’d had that mug ever since, held it just as closely as she’d held the jacket.

Another reminder.

Slowly, she bent down back into the bag, picking the mug up. The world kept on flying by outside, yet everything seemed to still, somehow, as she sat there with the mug cradled in her hands, her eyes searching its surface.

There it was, in her hands. It looked the same as it always did. The same character she didn’t recognize, the same Sokovian words across the front: “Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” The same feeling, aching desperately in her chest. The same memories being dredged up from the back of her mind.

She missed Natasha. Truly _missed_ her.

A tear slipped down Wanda’s cheek, slipping silently into the curves of her smile. Another followed, and another, until her body was shaking and the only thing she could do was sit there, sobbing with a smile on her face.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled—not like _this_.

And still, she clutched that mug in her hands. The memories kept roaring by.

Meeting up with Natasha again in an abandoned steel mill in Germany. Moving north, until they parted ways at the Russian border.

A letter, once she’d settled in London with Vision. Natasha’s handwriting.

Clint’s voice: “ _Do you even know why you’re leaving?_ ”

She wanted, desperately, for things to go back to the way they were. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that they would, but that didn’t stop that ache in her chest, didn’t stop her from feeling that dread every time something reminded her of what had happened, of what wasn’t there anymore. It didn’t make the want disappear.

If anything, it made her want that even more. She’d lost so much over the years—not just a jacket that meant too much, not just stuff that represented other stuff—but people. People she hadn’t realized she’d miss, people she knew she’d miss, people she never imagined herself without. Vis, Natasha, Rogers, even Stark. They were gone, lost, never coming back.

And without them, everything was so different. 

Wanda hated it.

She _hated_ it.

She hated seeing what everyone was before, seeing the team she’d loved fall apart at the seams.

She hated remembering it all—remembering how she’d stayed up late with Natasha, cooked with Vision, listened to Rogers’ friendly advice, and tolerated Stark’s quips. The afternoons at the compound, the old compound, when she’d snuggled up with her guitar in her lap and sipped tea from a chipped mug. All the battles, victories, and the joy that came with them. Even the mistakes they made, she hated remembering.

Wanda held the mug tighter, turning it over to grasp the handle. The tears kept falling and falling, one after the other, and that smile faded from her face. 

She hated that she still hadn’t seen _Lilo and Stitch_ , not when she’d been saving it so long for Natasha. Natasha’s face, her smile, the hardness in her eyes that never seemed to leave—it was all still there in Wanda’s mind, sitting like some kind of cruel mockery in the back of her head.

There were times they’d disagreed. All of them. That was why she’d been on the run for two years in the first place, wasn’t it? Yet, even then, they were still a team. They could move past it.

They did, for the most part.

One last battle, one last victory. Together. All of them, there, on the battlefield.

After that, they’d fallen apart.

So many were gone, and it seemed they just didn’t know how else to fill the holes and move on. _She_ didn’t. She’d lost so many, lost _everything_ and everyone so many times, and she just didn’t know how to deal with it. Instead, she just kept running and running and running.

Like she was now.

Running, afraid of losing anything else. Always with those same fears—of messing up, of hurting someone and having them never come back, of missing them and feeling that ache deep in her chest. Thinking and thinking about what she could’ve done to change it. But always, always running away from it all.

Everything with Peter Parker, everything she had done since the battle with Thanos, even so far back as Ultron, when she’d lost Pietro—it was all out of fear. Fear of losing anybody else, that one action would unravel it all.

It made her feel helpless. Hopeless. Like there was always, always something she was doing wrong.

And she was _sick_ of it. She didn’t _want_ to be afraid anymore.

She wanted to look back on all those memories like she just did. To stop hating the way she missed everyone, to be able to remember their smiles and their kind words without hurting all over again. Because, really, she couldn’t just keep trying to avoid them and hope they would go away.

She just _couldn’t_.

Otherwise, it would just keep hurting. She’d never move on—just as she hadn’t now, just as she hadn’t then, just as the rest of the team was struggling to do.

All she’d do was keep blaming herself. She’d just keep being afraid, keep feeling like there was just the loss and the fear that it would come rearing back up with everything she did.

Which she knew wasn’t right. There were others that were left in their wake—they, too, were left to sit with the same reminders and feel those same fears, those who didn’t run just to get away from it all. She hadn’t lost everyone, not really. She _wasn’t alone_ in this—there were people there that still loved her, people carrying the weight of the memories and the blame for the loss on their shoulders too.

And she’d just left them all behind.

She was _running_ from them. From the fear, from the loss, from all the memories that haunted her thoughts—but from them, nonetheless.

But it wasn’t right. She couldn’t just keep running away from the loss and expecting it to magically fix it.

Holding the mug in her hands, she straightened herself up. She set it gently in her lap, turning to the controls of the jet. Part of her training, both on the run and not, had included basic jet piloting, and this one, though far more advanced than anything anybody would even think of letting her touch, was not completely alien. 

She knew how to turn it around, and that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much appreciated, they make me smile like all dumb like (^∇^)


End file.
